Friends of a Solar Empire
by Bioweapon 155
Summary: A thousand years of peace and prosperity can make you soft. But now Equestria is no stranger to the struggles of its fellows in the Trade Order as they fight for their home.    Times of war are upon us.
1. Chapter 1

**MLP:FiS is property of Hasbro.**

**SoaSE is propert of Stardock Games.**

**This insanity is mine.**

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><em>Friends of a Solar Empire<em>  
>===================<p>

_It had been one thousand years._

_One thousand years since Celestia banished her sister to the depths of space._

_One thousand years since the Trade Order had last forced their hand on a sovereign world._

_And little less than one thousand years since Humans and Ponykind first shook hand and hoof._

_It had been nine hundred and eighty years since Equestrians first travelled through space; Nine hundred and seventy five years since the first cargo ship docked on their first space station; Nine hundred and sixty since they made their first colonies amongst the stars and Nine hundred and thirty since their first home-made phase drive streaked to alien worlds._

_It had been a golden age for the Trade Order, for humans, for ponies, for griffons and diamond dogs._

_Until the Vasari came._

_At first, we didn't stand a chance. A millennium of peace and prosperity makes you soft. World after world after system fell to them, stripped of resources and slaves. No one could stop them._

_And then one man **did**._

_Verek Kol, the hero of the Traders. He rallied the merchants of the surrounding systems, and told them to arm themselves. Ferries, cargo ships and pleasure ships were covered in patchwork armor. Lasers, missiles and auto cannons were salvaged from museums and scrapyards. Pegasi and Griffons became fighter pilots. Earth ponies and diamond dogs became infantrymen and gunners. Equestrian and human technicians made the first shields in one thousand years. Businessmen and ponies became commanders, telescopes became sights, news networks became battle nets, and civilians became soldiers._

_A fleet of peace became a fleet of war._

_And, when the Vasari came, they gave them a hell of a fight._

_Verek would never live to see it, but the actions of that one, small, plucky fleet would be heard across Trader space. They woke us from our peaceful ignorant slumber, drove the Council to make the decisions it had to._

_The Trader Emergency Coalition was born, a military force tasked with defending our homes from the invaders and backed by the monstrous wealth of the Trade Order. A giant woke up that day._

_And it's been ten years since then. Ten years of fighting and war on the front. Even the most peaceful of worlds have volunteers fighting the Vasari._

_We drew a line in the sand, and after ten years of sacrifices, no one has managed to cross it._

_The Vasari are being held at bay, and High Command has authorized a rotation of the combat forces, replacing war-weary veterans with fresh graduates from military training. Heaven knows we've earned it._

* * *

><p>An <em>Akkan <em>battlecruiser is a military oddity.

Based on the _Gevene_-class cruise ships, which were in turn converted _Elsa_-class colony ships, it is intended to ferry refugees from heavy combat zones, and to reestablish industry on reclaimed worlds. As a result, it has a very large civilian crew. Add the fact that they are usually owned by private enterprises who often insist on having their own crews on the ship, and you have a potential nightmare involving the chain of command.

The most common solution to that problem (besides simply training the entire crew for combat) had been to establish a dual command structure. The civilian side of the ship was under the supervision of one Captain, often appointed by the propietor of the ship, and the military side was under the command of an executive officer, appointed by TEC high command. Unless the ship was under fire, the Captain was in command. If combat arose, the executive officer took charge.

This measure was mostly to appease the owners of the ship, as the nature of war often made sure that the civilian side would soon become as familiar with the niceties of space combat as the actual military officers, and would even be capable of fulfilling their roles, if the time came. That being said, their jobs consisted mostly of handing and taking care of the passengers, as well as solving the sort of problems lasers couldn't.

This arrangement handily explained why one of the first ships with a mixed human-equestrian crew was an _Akkan_. The ship in question, the _On To the Stars_, was owned by a family of wealthy Crystal miners from Equestria, with one of its heirs as Captain.

Although, truth to be told, Rarity would much rather have been running her old shop than a ship.

"Phase Drive disengaging, we are now in the Equestrian gravity well. We'll be in orbit in five minutes." There was a slight pause, before the quiet voice added, "Please take care of yourselves down there."

Rarity couldn't resist a smile, "Oh, Fluttershy, you really shouldn't worry about our crew! I'm sure they can handle themselves down there!"

The pegasus in question switched off the headset she wore and carefully set it on the console. "That's what you said last time, ma'am."

The unicorn waved off her friend's concerns, reclining on the soft chair, "Oh pish posh! They certainly know better than to do that two times in a row!" She gave her a mischievous smile, "Besides aren't _you_ the one to talk sugarcube? Why, I _certainly_remember you having a hoof in that particular incident! Right Colonel?"

A human male with dark hair, bright eyes, clean shaven face and crisp blue uniform looked up from the holographic map in the center of the Command Centre, an apple eating grin on his face at the memory. "Yes she did, ma'am."

The surrounding crewmembers tried their best to keep a straight face, with varying results. The incident in question, a truly epic shore leave between missions, had become legendary amongst the crew, although openly talking about it near the sensitive Pegasus had been discouraged.

Fluttershy seemed to shrink, her voice shrinking with her. "Ma'am, I thought we weren't going to talk about...that."

Rarity reached over to ruffle her friend and NAV officer's mane. "Oh, but we're not talking about it at all! Just a bit of group reminiscing, that's all."

Fluttershy blushed, and shrunk as much as a pony could without physically changing size.

"Still," Rarity tapped her chin with her hoof, "Lietenant Fluttershy has a point. No need for a repeat of that experience."

Her hoof snapped up to point at the Colonel. "Colonel Rekav, you are forbidden from gambling _anything_."

The Colonel simply smiled. "No problem, ma'am."

"Lieutenant Fluttershy, please send a memo to the rest of the crew regarding the list of things I will _not_bail them out of."

Fluttershy called up the holographic keyboard on her conole. "Yes ma'am."

"As for the rest of you, we're not there yet, so get back to your jobs!"

A chorus of affirmatives came from the ponies and humans, and the griffon piloting the ship.

Satisfied that any insanity had been thoroughly prevented, Captain Rarity leaned back on the chair. She'd been waiting to come back home for quite some time now. Her parents had had a little filly while she had been away, and she couldn't wait to see her face to face.

As much as she loved this ship, she missed her old hometown and the little shop she'd run before volunteering to help with the situation over in the frontlines. She hadn't been Captain when they set off, that had been an old earth pony that had had to be sent planet-side from some illness. When the replacement failed to arrive due to raiding, her family had put her in charge. At least, on paper. In reality, she'd let the Colonel run the ship, since she had absolutely no idea what to do.

After half a year of impromptu apprenticeship, she became confident enough to do what the official papers claimed she was doing. She ran a tight, clean ship, and passengers would often comment that the officers of the _On To The Stars_looked startlingly similar to those of recruitment posters. She'd warred against the strictly utilitarian aesthetics of the TEC, going so far as to have her mechanics rearrange the power cables for the lasers to hide them from view. Although still dissatisfied with the results, the interior of the ship was much more appealing than on other ships, while still somehow remaining functional.

Rarity smiled. Travelling to other worlds had given her all _sorts_ of ideas she could work on when she returned to her little shop in Ponyville. She couldn't wait to get back to her sowing machine!

* * *

><p>Spike was roused from his near-slumber by Twilight's voice.<p>

"Is that a _Kol_?"

Until that moment, the lavender unicorn had been completely silent, engrossed in the holographic text in front of her. The baby dragon unbuckled himself from his seat and peered around Twilight to look out the window.

Out there in the distance, barely visible in the starry backdrop, was a tiny shape. That they could see it in the first place probably accounted as a minor miracle in itself, the sheer size of space meant that encounters like this were usually rare.

Twilight's horn shimmered into a faint glow, and a circle of air in front of the window distorted, magnifying the image of the distant battleship.

Spike whistled, it _was_ a _Kol_. He'd only seen pictures of the things before, but now that he was seeing the real deal, he came to the conclusion that the pictures didn't do the thing justice. There was something about the _Kol_ that -even when it was cruising serenely through space- made it seem like it was three seconds away from shooting something. It was probably the huge gun on the underside.

Spike then noticed something odd about this particular _Kol_.

"Hey, isn't it going the same way we are?"

Twilight took a closer look at the ship. "I think it is," she answered, "Talk about coincidences." She raised an eyebrow, "I thought _Kols_ were rare."

"Well, maybe it's good luck?" Spike offered, shrugging, "Seeing a super-rare battleship on your first visit to Equestria?"

Twilight snorted, "_Please_, even if I believed in things like omens, _Kols_ are usually in the most brutal areas of fighting. If anything, they're bad luck." She frowned ever so slightly, a pout on her muzzle, "And it's _not_ my first visit to Equestria!"

Spike couldn't help but look incredulous. "How come?" he said, "I've never seen you go down there before!"

"Well, I went 'down there' plenty of times before you came along!"

Spike poked the unicorn's back, "Oh yeah? How many times have you been to a planet before?"

Twilight fell silent.

Spike poked her some more. "C'mon, confess!"

"…To a planet? Once, in Cirno. The only other rock I've been to was Muira." She finally answered, the last word becoming oddly soft.

Spike stopped poking her. "Oh," Was all he could say.

Well, Muira certainly didn't count as a planetary visit. For one thing, it was an _asteroid_. For another….

He gave Twilight a small backrub as a way to say "I'm sorry I brought _that_ up."

"Well cheer up! I'm sure that, whatever the Princess wants us for, we'll be fine here!"

* * *

><p>"Twilight, this is seriously freaking me out."<p>

"I know! Since when does Equestria have all these warships in orbit?"

Prior to that moment, neither unicorn nor dragon knew it was possible to have a traffic jam in space.

Now, they did.

The mostly civilian-centered _Argonev_ in orbit over Equestria was absolutely overrun by shuttles and other craft. Nearly every single type of military craft seemed to be trying to dock into the station, and the four large docking booms on the lower levels actually had queue going on, the _Kol_ they had seen earlier was waiting for its turn besides an _Akkan_ and looking more and more like it was five seconds away from shooting something. The other booms were occupied by a _Sova_, a _Marza_, and a _Dunov_.

The shuttle they were on seemed to be fifty second in line for one of the ports, and Spike now understood why dragons never used spaceships if they could afford not to. Twilight seemed to have shut off everything except the glowing text in front of her.

Spike was now peering past Twilight and out the window in absolute boredom. He was looking at the ships there, when one of them caught his eye: a big, brick-like lump of a grey armor.

Twilight must've caught sight if it on the corner of her eye, because she immediately snapped her head to look intently at the passing _Kodiak_, her horn glowing with a magnification spell to look at the registration numbers.

Spike tried looking past Twillight's shoulder, without much success. "Any luck?" he asked.

The unicorn scrutinized the numbers, sighed, and went back to reading. "No, still not it." She answered.

Spike gave her shoulder a small pat. "Eh, you'll find them eventually."

Twilight shut off her portable computer, the hologram in front of her blinking out of existence and peered through the window. "Well, _one_ of these ships must be them."

Spike snapped his claws, "Exactly! Besides, it gives us something _else_ to do while we wait for these people to get their act together."

Twilight giggled at the thought of the traffic controllers scrambling around deep inside the _Argonev_. They huddled up next to the window, watching ships pass by

* * *

><p>They'd been waiting for what felt like hours, watching as other shuttles docked into the station with an envy shared by the rest of the passengers until the captain announced that the auxiliary docking booms had been brought out in light of the increasing traffic, and the flow picked up the pace.<p>

Still, by the time the familiar sounds of a docking spacecraft filled the passenger cabin, Spike was sure their connection for Canterlot had already left. And, if Twilight's twitching was any indication, so was she.

It turns out that the station was just as crowded on the inside as on the outside. The grim metal corridors the Traders favored were chock full of uniformed men, women, ponies, diamond dogs and even a few griffons. The cheerful holographic advertisements failed to provide any cheer, and only added to the din.

"Oy! Watch it!" Spike cried at _yet another _pair of legs that bumped into them and nearly made him loose his balance on top of Twilight's back. The unicorn seemed to be an instant away from throwing everyone away with telekinesis, and although Spike couldn't blame her, he'd rather that not happen.

"Spike…" He heard Twilight voice beneath him, sounding very, _very_ close to snapping.

"Keep it together Twi', just a little longer!" he shouted over the din.

Thankfully, the corridor ended, and they entered a large chamber, where the crowd they were in quickly fanned out, much to Twilight's unhidden relief. The room they were in occupied the majority of the space in the civilian section of the _Argonev_, and one could have parked a decent-sized spaceship inside. It looked like an inverted pyramid, with catwalks along the sides and a central pillar with shops, services and a restaurant on top. Screens on the bulkheads featured a view of space in lieu of windows and, if Spike leaned over the railing to peer all the way downstairs, he would have seen an enormous electric spiral staircase leading down towards the atmospheric shuttle bays.

Of course, you couldn't simply walk into the shuttle bays. You had to get your ticket down to the planet, and your luggage verified so as to be clean of anything that might upset the ecosystem or whatever.

At least, that was what Twilight had read about in "The Traveller's Guide to Trader Space". That she had to do any research involving a space station had been _embarrassing_. She prided herself on being able to find where anything was in any space habitat you could find. She was sure she could navigate the corridors of the Deep Space Academy of the Sciences and Magic with her eyes closed.

However, when it came to actually going from space station to planet, she had been forced to admit she knew absolutely nothing about it.

She booted up the portable computer hanging from her neck, hologram flickering to life in front of her. According to what she'd read, she could buy the electronic ticket on the Broadcast Network. She quickly entered the page, and bought the ticket for the next available flight to Canterlot Spaceport.

To her eternal dismay, it was five hours away. All the other flights were booked to the brim.

Spike became aware of the unicorn's increasingly frazzled appearance.

"Oh, boy."

* * *

><p>"Would you look at that unicorn Colonel?"<p>

The Colonel turned from the hologram floating in front of him to look out the window and at the area surrounding the restaurant -which was kindly offering a discount for people with TEC uniforms-, setting down the glass full of what Rarity was still certain was not actually a drink, but some form of fuel.

"Which one, ma'am?" he asked.

"The lavender one, Rekav, with the baby dragon on her back."

The Colonel centered his view on the appropriate unicorn.

"Ah, yes. She seems lost ma'am." he said. 'Lost' was an understatement, the unicorn looked seconds away from losing her mind.

Rarity brought her hooves together in front of her muzzle. "Why, I'm willing to bet this is her first time in this dreadfully crowded station." Her eyes filled with empathy, "Poor thing."

The Colonel mentally counted off the seconds in his head. Rarity was a generous, charitable soul. And it was that same generosity and charity that had led her to go off halfway across the galaxy and brave entire fleets to help people escape the Vasari.

He managed to count to three before Rarity spoke again.

"Oh Lieutenant Fluttershy, could you be a dear and bring her over? I simply _cannot_ sit here and watch anyone lose their marbles like that!"

The pink maned Pegasus gave her a timid salute, and left the table.

Satisfied with her actions, she turned back to the Colonel. "Well, have you found out anything about the horrid traffic jam outside?"

The Colonel, shrugged, sipping his drink (for a given definition of 'drink'). "Looks like High Command's recommended Equestria as a great place for R&R, and the Prime minister agreed to it. Heck, they even got Celestia's blessing and all that."

Rarity could help but feel proud that her home world would attract weary soldiers in need for peace, "Why I'm _sure_ you military types will find plenty of R&R over here! Equestria's always been a peaceful world, just what you need to forget about the war for a few months."

The Colonel smiled that smile of his, "You say that as if you weren't a military type, ma'am."

Rarity made an exaggerated motion for him to stay quiet, "Hush now, I need to keep appearances!"

The Colonel sipped his drink, resisting the urge to chuckle. It was a running joke on the ship that Rarity, as well as 'her' side of the crew, was still a civilian, despite having as much military know how as the rest of the ship, and was even eligible to the same medals.

"Have you found out about the other ships here?" she asked.

Rekav nodded, "Plenty. Fortieth and ninety first fleets are here. The _Sova_ we saw's the _Endless Sky_, home of the Wonderbolts. The _Dunov_'s a local, the _Ninety Nine Acres_. She's owned by the Apples, I heard."

Rarity perked up at this. "The Apples? Why, I happen to be quite close to one of them!"

The Colonel raised an eyebrow. "Really ma'am?"

"Yes, her name's Applejack. She's one of my old school friends. Her brother's probably in that ship."

The Colonel nodded, and made a mental note to have an excuse for not going if he was ever roped up with the Captain and her friends.

"Hmm…" he continued reading the list of ships at the station, and paled.

"Frak."

Rarity was startled. The Colonel _never_ swore, and if he did, it was usually after a situation had gotten to the point most people would be out of offensive vocabulary.

"What is it?"

The Colonel's hand collided with his face. "The _Marza_'s the TDN _Drake_."

Rarity, if anything, became even paler.

"Oh dear," she gave a glance around the room, "I… I hope Fluttershy doesn't meet anyone from there…"

"Likewise, ma'am."

Rarity took a deep breath. The _Drake_'s crew hadn't reached here yet, if it had, they would have certainly made their presence known.

"Any other surprises, Colonel?"

"Well the _Kol_'s-"

"-the TDN_ Novus_. My ship by the way."

Unicorn and human, as well as most of those sitting at the table, whirled around to look at the new arrival. It was a man, with slightly dark skin and a greying beard and hair, wearing the fancy half-cape and shoulder pads of an Admiral.

There was a scramble as those immediately present rose to salute him.

Rarity was quick to address the stealthy Admiral, "Captain Rarity reporting, sir! Sorry, I didn't see you coming, sir!"

The Admiral crisply returned the salute, "At ease, ladies and gentlemen." He said, and pulled up a chair from a nearby, empty table, "Would you mind if I sat here for a moment?" he asked.

Rarity beamed, _an Admiral at her table! Who've thought?_

"Of course not, sir!"

Rarity returned to her seat, along with her bridge crew. As the man was took a seat next to her, she got a glimpse of the nametag on the man's lapel, and boggled.

This wasn't a regular Admiral.

Had anyone told Rarity she'd be sharing a table with Admiral Wilkhaim Kol, she'd have died laughing.

* * *

><p>Twilight was partway through seriously considering teleporting her way down to the planet when she heard a small voice.<p>

"Um, are you okay?"

"No! _Nonononononono! _Not okay! Definitely not okay! I should have been at Canterlot _hours_ ago! Now I'm stuck here because everyone in every ship in the Trade Order decided today was the _perfect_ day to come over to Equestria and they're all gotten tickets before me and now I'm so late I'll be breaking the record for being late to an appointment and as a result I'll be banished to the su-!"

Twilight was suddenly aware of two things. First, of the increasingly desperate prodding from Spike on her back and second, she had, at one point, come face to face with a young Pegasus mare with a mink mane and cream coat, who shaking quite badly.

The third thing to enter her mind was the fact that the shaken, dazed, and possibly catatonic Pegasus was wearing TEC Defense Navy blues. Her returning peripheral vision also informed her that the surrounding sentiments had suddenly given her a wide berth, as if saying "Let's get _away_ from this madmare."

Twilight considered teleporting away, if only to go someplace far, far away from here.

A nervous laugh escaped her lips as she slowly backed away the TEC pony, and made a feeble attempt at straightening out her uniform with telekinesis, replacing the cap on her head.

"…Sorry?" she offered lamely.

The Pegasus glanced around at the on looking crowd.

"Could you follow me? My Captain would like to have a word with you."

Twilight was sure her coat and mane must have become white at that point. She opened her mouth to let loose a torrent of sincere and profuse apologies, but was halted when a hoof covered her mouth.

"_Quietly_, if that's okay with you." The Pegasus said, her voice still a quiet whisper.

Twilight kept her mouth shut, all manner of horrible consequences playing in her mind.

_Oh no. Oh nononononono! What am I going to do? What are they going to do to me? The TEC can't punish civilians, can they?_

_You're not a normal civilian, Twilight,_ said the traitor in her head.

_Oh, dammit! The Council is already jumpy about me! If they get wind that I attacked a TEC officer…_

_Wait, why are we going into a restaurant?_

* * *

><p>"…so I told him, "Well, I apologize, your Highness, but all the diamond engagement rings in the galaxy are not going to make me make space for all your luggage!"" Rarity laughed heartily, "The <em>look <em>on his face when I said that! Oh I sorely wish I had been carrying a camera right then!"

Admiral Kol laughed with just as much enthusiasm. "Prince Blueblood being refused? That must have at least left him in a coma!"

The Colonel joined in, smiling that smile of his. "It nearly did sir. We were actually discussing carting him to the medic when he snapped and started yelling nonsense."

The Admiral made an effort to stop laughing, "And that's when he had a fit right in the middle of the CIC?"

"Exactly sir!" Rarity lifted her glass with telekinesis -being careful not to take the Colonel's by mistake- and brought it to her lips, savoring the taste of fine Griffian wine. She continued, "So there I was, Vasari ponding me from out of range, civilians trying to dock with a huge shuttle in the way and a Prince throwing a tantrum right in front of my eyes!" The mad grin on her face, grew wider, "He was acting just like a little foal! When I asked Lieutenant Fluttershy to escort him to his quarters, I almost even told him he needed a time out!" She refilled her second glass that day, "Eventually, we jettisoned the shuttle –all full of gold and cars and paintings of himself-, loaded up the remaining civvies and got out of there. Once we weren't in danger of being killed, we simply couldn't stop laughing about it for _weeks!_"

The Admiral shook his head, proving that even legendary Admirals could smile like lunatics to appropriate anecdotes, "I should tell you about some _really_ bone-headed human governors I've met. But I have a better story than that." He leaned in, a conspiring tone in his voice, "It goes like this: three years ago, back when I was still captain, we got sent to an asteroid field in the middle of nowhere because Intel had it that the Snakes had something valuable in it. Now, I'd been to asteroid fields before, but a couple of my crew hadn't, and only had holovids to go on."

The rest of the table had leaned in to listen. Rarity slowly nodded her head in sympathy. Despite millennia of years of space travel, the makers of holovids still couldn't quite grasp the scale of things in the void. Even the densest asteroid thicket had thousands of kilometers between each rock.

"Let me guess sir, they asked if the ship would fit through there?"

The Admiral nodded "Exact words, Captain. Now, the spacing of the gravity wells meant that we had a huge area to survey so the conservative estimate was we'd be there for a week, tops. Well, we'd been there for about two days or so when-"

"Um, Captain Rarity, I brought the unicorn you spotted."

Those sitting at the table looked up to see that Lieutenant Fluttershy had returned, with an incredibly confused, lavender unicorn with a frazzled dark blue mane with purple and pink stripes. The terminally shy Pegasus caught one glimpse of the Admiral, and shrank more than one would have thought possible without physically changing size.

A small draconian head peered past the unicorn's head, and winced.

"Oh boy."

Admiral Kol turned to look at Captain Rarity, both eyebrows raised.

"Ah, a guest of yours, Captain?" he asked, a very _knowing_smile on his face.

Rarity then realized how invinting a random passing unicorn would look like to the Admiral, and resisted the urge to have her hoof meet her face.

_And this was going so well…_

* * *

><p>Sometimes, Wilkhaim Kol just didn't understand what High Command was thinking some of the time. He was aware that the Trade Order Council had plenty of reason to trust Celestia, but to take her word on a fairy tale edged into the absurd.<p>

Still, there wasn't much use complaining. He was already here, after all. He'd busied himself getting to know the Captains and crew he might have to command, if this "Nightmare Moon" turned out to be real. As his father once said, a commander who knows his soldiers as people can lead them where one who knows them as names on a file can't.

Prior to the war, the Kol clan had been regarded as oddballs in the Trade Order. Descended from migrants coming from a world ruled by a military dictatorship, they had found the average lifestyle of the Trade Order citizen completely incompatible with their way of life. So they decided not to change it in the slightest, raising their children using a slightly saner variant of the military regime their homeworld once had.

It turns out, that same disciplined upbringing made the Kols excellent mercenaries, bodyguards and manufacturers. And, when war came back in the form of alien invaders, it made them legendary.

Wilkhaim was one of four living Kols, the other three being Vakaras Kol, Admiral of the Navy; Mara Kol, Commander in chief of the Trader Planetary Forces; and his ten year old son, Eiphas Kol.

But enough family history, let us get back to the present.

Wilkhaim took only a moment to recognize the unicorn in front of him. He was quite familiar with the nature of Celestia's student; the TEC had extensive files on the… _circumstances_ of her origin. To think lunatics on that scale could have been hidden for so long…

He sincerely hoped that there wasn't another one sharing the unicorn's misfortune.

Still, her presence here surprised him. As far as he knew, Twilight Sparkle had never set hoof on Equestria before, much less this station. He turned towards Captain Rarity, who had made her face appear blank.

"Ah, a guest of yours, Captain?" he asked.

"Well… in a fashion, sir. The civilian was appearing disoriented, and I had Lieutenant Fluttershy fetch her so I could give her some pointers, sir."

So, she _wasn't_ here to escort her to the planet. This meant that Captain Rarity had chosen to aid a completely random unicorn that _just happened_ to be Celestia's prized student.

The Admiral frowned internally. Had this sort of coincidence happened in a holovid, he'd have chalked it up to bad, cliché writing. And he had very little reason to suspect foul play, the other alternative.

The Admiral looked right into the Captain's eyes, and recalled one note on her record.

"So, were you planning on using military resources to assist her?"

The Captain winced. "Not particularly, sir."

The Admiral nodded in satisfaction, and pretended to inspect his drink, "Well, unfortunately, this civilian does warrant authorization of the use of military resources."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the pearly white mare briefly put on a look of utter confusion before returning her face to its blank state.

"Rea- I mean, yes, sir."

"Unless, of course, Celestia doesn't mind having her star pupil be held up by the traffic we're making."

The Admiral quite nearly smiled when Captain Rarity's eyes went as wide as dinner plates.

"O-of course not, sir!"

"Precisely." Wilkhaim took out the palm-sized brick that was the portable computer and booted it. Logging in to _Kasztanka _Station's Military Broadcast Network, he used the generous bureaucratic power that came with being a TEC Admiral to expedite a few special permits for Rarity. "I just gave your ship's atmospheric shuttle bay permission to send a shuttle to Canterlot Spaceport. I would also suggest you contact your teacher, Miss Sparkle."

The unicorn blinked a few times at the turn of events that had just occurred before her eyes. "I…I can do that? But yes! Of course I can! Why didn't I think of this earlier?" she rambled, and glanced around the on looking table full of TEC officers, "I'll be back in a minute!" she exclaimed, and trotted off to where she could get some privacy for composing her message.

The Admiral watched her leave, and went back to the hologram floating in front of him, frowning at the displayed time. He drained his glass and rose from the table, the rest of the officers doing likewise.

"Well, it appears I have to take my leave. I trust you shall escort her to the surface, Captain?"

"Yes sir, I'll do it myself, sir."

He nodded, "Good, then." He said, and gave a salute, "Dismissed."

The assorted species at the table returned the salute, and the Admiral left. He'd already met the bridge crew of the other capital ships, except for the _Drake_.

However, he was already quite familiar with the _Drake_'s crew. They were surprisingly professional, and the captain was very dependable.

Just a little… well, _nuts._

He recalled today's schedule, chock full of the paperwork necessary to deploy some auxiliary docks, meeting with representatives of the Ministry of Equestria and Celestia herself, the PR campaign politics demanded he be doing…

He sighed. Sometimes, the pay grade just didn't cut it.

* * *

><p>The Captain had already left with the VIP, promising to return later on. Once the Admiral had left, Rarity had bombarded the poor unicorn about how it was like to be Celstia's personal student.<p>

Fluttershy had remained at the restaurant, nibbling at a chocolate brownie. She'd gotten a temporary job at an animal clinic near where Rarity lived, and the Captain had offered to let her stay at her house. The Pegasus had quietly declined; she already had a place to stay until the next rotation.

She was minding her own business when she was startled by a horribly familiar, boisterous voice.

"AH! Look who we have here!"

Fluttershy froze, terrified of what she would see behind her, yet already knowing exactly who it was.

A barrel-chested bear of a man, with a bald head, prodigal beard and maniac grin appeared at the table, clapping an enormous hand on the Pegasus's shoulder.

"It is Lieutenant Fluttershy! From _On to the Stars!_ You here for Arr and Arr too?"

"Yes."

"Ha! Good, good! Equestria, she is good world. Although I think weather is too hot sometimes, no?"

"Yes."

"Ahahaha! Yes, you understand! Now I must go, much to do! I must buy much alcohol, food, ice, rubber hose and hire man in penguin suit!" He gestured at the entire table, grinning like a madman. "Big party tonight! Just like in motherworld! And you are all invited! _AL OF YOU!_"

Without bothering to wait for a response, Captain Borr Vorskov left, cackling heartily.

Fluttershy sorely wished pegasi could shrink. She'd have loved to be able to do so.

* * *

><p><em>Enter password: *******<em>

_Processing…_

_Password confirmed._

_Accessing file RRSTWSRI115893…_

_Accessing research footage #0001…_

_Playing footage…_

_Holovid of what looks like a nursery. A small lavender filly unicorn, with a dark blue mane and big, purple eyes stands rigidly in front of the camera._

_"What's your name?"_

_"Subject five-five-four-two." the filly replies, the flat tone at odds with her age._

_"That was a number, not your name. Could you tell us your name please?"_

_"Subject five-five-four-two."_

_The researcher sighs. "This is hopeless; we're just not getting through to her."_

_Someone else responds, a female. "Wait; let me try a different approach."_

_A rag doll comes into view, hoisted by unicorn telekinesis._

_The doll waves a flappy foreleg "Hello! I'm Smartypants! What's your name?"_

_The filly is startled by the doll, jumping back a few feet away. She looks at it in confusion._

_The doll bobbles up and down. "Aw, did I scare you? I'm really sorry! I just wanted to know your name."_

_The filly approaches the doll, and carefully noses it._

_"Toy." she realizes, and sits down on her haunches, lifting her forelegs to wrap around the doll._

_The other unicorn releases it. The filly lies down on the ground, holding it in her forelegs and nuzzling it._

_"She's soft." she discovers, and nuzzles the toy some more._

_"Hey! You never told Smartypants your name!"_

_The filly is suddenly horrified; she springs to her hooves, looking around for any source of danger._

_"Don't worry; we're not going to hurt you. Just tell Smartypants your name, you real one this time."_

_Slowly, the filly lowers her guard and addresses the doll._

_For the first time, she almost sounds like what she is. Like a child._

_"I'm sorry Smartypants. My name is Twilight Sparkle."_

_"That's a wonderful name, Twilight! A wonderful name for a wonderful pony!"_

_The unicorn filly embraces the doll, a small smile on her face._

_"Thank you." is all she says._

_Holovid ends._

* * *

><p><em><em>**Now, let the flak begin!  
><strong>


	2. Chapter 2

**Once again, I remind ****you that I own none of the characters or settings portrayed.**_  
><em>

_Friends of a Solar Empire_

Much like griffons, pegasi had a historical love-hate relationship with space travel.

On one hoof, the sky-loving equines hated the conditions on board spaceships. Pegasi, after all, universally enjoyed vast, open spaces, blue skies, clouds, air currents and the sun. It was a rare Pegasus that could tolerate those confined areas without as much as a viewport to the outside. The ship makers of Equestria and the Gryphus Republic alleviated this problem somewhat by making their interior spaces larger, and adding holoscreens with a view to the outside; sacrificing the practicality of other ships of the Trade Order for comfort, but the expense usually made it prohibitive.

On the other hoof, pegasi _loved_ space, more than any other kind of pony. It was the ultimate experience for one who loved flying. Sure, out there you didn't have air currents, no wind on your face and no airflow rushing over your feathers, but those things had been replaced by sheer G-forces, the view of the planet below, and the endless field of stars.

Which is why, despite their adversity to cramped spaceships, pegasi and griffons were often considered some of the best pilots in Trader space. Even before the war, it was common that anti-pirate forces would employ both species as fighter and bomber pilots, their bodies more adept to the shifting G-forces than human pilots.

Until recently, positions for pilots had been scarce and usually employed by security firms. The arrival of the Vasari changed that, the invading aliens exponentially increasing the demand for competent pilots for everything from frigates and fighters, to cruisers and capital ships.

So, when Rainbow Dash graduated from Cloudsdale flight school, the first thing she did was sign up for the Equestrian Air Force academy. After struggling with strict instructors and early waking hours, she managed to earn her wings, so to speak, and join the Eighth squadron defending Equestria.

It was a good job, the pay was rather decent, and she got to fly around in an ASF-109, the best atmosphere-capable space fighter yet from Cobalt aerospace. The rainbows she had painted on the wings only served to make it cooler.

But right now, even all the coolness in the world would only have served to slightly alleviate Dash's current problem: Being utterly bored at the current situation. Sure, the sudden appearance of seemingly the entire TEC Defense Navy had caused a few moments of enjoyment for her, and panic for everypony and everybody else, but her fun had ended when she, as well as the rest of her squadron, were told to perform that one thing she hated the most.

Patrol duty. Bucking patrol duty. There was nothing worse than waiting for pirates or aliens or whatever, and having them _never_ show up.

She shifted inside her flight suit, a hermetic little number that served to keep the pilot alive in case of an ejection. Sensors in the wings of the suit sent signals to a computer in the back, which plugged into the fly-by-wire computer of the plane allowing her to fly the plane using minute movements of her wings to control it. Dash had the theory that the idea had come from a human taking a foal's suggestion too seriously.

She eased the throttle open, rolling her plane so that the bubble canopy faced a line of civvies trying to dock at the _Kasztanka_. She passed within a few kilometers of the queue. She tilted her head up to look at them, the visor helpfully pointing out the names and even the registration numbers of a given ship, should she look hard at it.

Satisfied that everything was as nice and orderly as the Air Controller demanded, she guided her fighter to the next area she was supposed to patrol, on the other side of the _Kasztanka_. As she made her way there, she passed the _Sova_-class docked on one of the primary docking booms, the TDN _Endless Sky_.

She felt a pang of envy. Ever since her childhood heroes, the Wonderbolts, had gone off to kick alien flank, she'd been vying to join them. It was the reason she had joined the Equestrian Self Defense Fleet, after all. But so far, all she'd ever shot at were the practice dummies they occasionally flew out. She'd applied for a transfer, several times in fact, and so far they had refused her. After all, the frontlines were on the other side of Trader space, it would take months simply to get there.

Now however, the situation had stabilized to the point they had sent the weary first generation home and Dash finally had a chance to transfer over and see some _real_ action.

A voice crackled over the radio comm.

"_Starbuck, this is Nest eight. Come in, over."_

"Hello Nest eight, this is Starbuck. I read you loud and clear, over."

"_We have a civilian shuttle undocking from Tango-Delta-November-One-One-Victor-Zulu-Five-Four. Request flyby and authenticate, over."_

Raimbow dash sighed, more routine stuff.

"Willco, moving for flyby. Standby over."

Twitching her wings, she directed her little craft around the station. She waited until she was past the _Akkan_'s dorsal side, and flipped her fighter over, pointing the nose towards the planet. She opened the throttle, passing the _Akkan_'s starboard side by a few kilometers. Flipping her fighter around, she throttled towards the fore of the huge ship, where a shuttle had just exited the forward bay, and was floating a few hundred meters to the fore of the ship.

Dash raised an eyebrow; this was apparently the captain's personal shuttle, a sleek, Equestrian design with vibrant colors and a big, stylized "R" on the control fins.

…Wait a sec…

Dash was reminded of a rather… dramatic unicorn she had come across while visiting one of her friends in Ponyville. She was supposed to be heiress to one of the larger diamond mining businesses, but she busied herself running a fancy clothes shop. Apparently her parents were OK with it.

With a slight feeling of trepidation, she opened another comm line.

"Civilian shuttle callsign Romeo-Alpha-Romeo-Foxtrot-Four-Eight, this is Starbuck of Equestria Self Defense fleet. Request authenticate, over."

There was a pause, before a new voice came on the radio.

"_Starbuck, this is civilian shuttle_ _callsign Romo-Alpha-Romeo-Foxtrot-Four-Eight. My authentication is Kilo-Four-One-Four, over."_

Dash keyed in the code into the flight computer, sending it over to the _Kasztanka _for verification. It came out green.

Dash would have left it there, but procedure demanded that she verbally verify it with the Air Controller. She tapped the appropriate control and switched back to her previous comm line.

"Nest Eight, this is Starbuck. Sending authentication for Civilian shuttle callsign Romeo-Alpha-Romeo-Foxtrot-Four-Eight, over."

"_Starbuck, this is Nest Eight. Send, over."_

Dash repeated the pass code from the shuttle, and waited while the Air Controller green lighted it.

"_Authentication is correct, escort civilian shuttle until reentry, then return to previous position, over."_

"Willco, out."

She repeated the message to the waiting shuttle, and sent a short burst from the fighter's engines, keeping pace a few kilometers behind and above the larger craft as it headed for the planet. She waited until she could see the flare of reentry on the magnified image in a corner of her visor, and pulled up, back to her boring patrol duty.

Dash looked at the endless field of stars, and wished something interesting would happen.

* * *

><p>"…Oh it must be wonderful being Celestia's prized student! I'm sure you get to go to all <em>sorts<em> of interesting places!"

Twilight, for the past fifteen minutes or so, had been trying to keep up with the other unicorn's rapid-fire conversation with her. Without much success, one might add.

They'd boarded Captain Rarity's personal shuttle aboard her _Akkan_, and had just been cleared to enter atmosphere.

"Not really, I tend to stay up in space stations a lot." She answered.

"Well, tell me about them!"

Twilight chewed her lip. She was _sure_ at least half of the stations she had lived in were considered "Classified material" by the Trade Order Council, the Equestrian government and the TEC.

"Well… they're nothing special, really, now that I think about it." She answered, "There are a lot of standardized parts in space stations, so they're all pretty much the same, when you get to it. Even the Deep Space Academy uses them."

Rarity nodded in agreement, "Ah yes. I remember telling the Colonel that if it weren't for the signs on the wall, I'd have an enormously difficult time telling one station for the other half the time." She leaned in closer, "But how about planets? Stations may be all the same, but I've never seen one planet quite like another."

"I've never been to a planet before." Came the blunt answer.

Rarity blinked at her.

"Never? Seriously?"

Twilight flinched invisibly, "Well… I've been to Cirno… but I was four years old at the time." She shrugged, "I don't remember much of it."

"Why, no wonder you were lost back there! This must be an entirely new experience for you."

"It is! I mean, know how to get into a planet and all, but it's mostly…theoretical." Twilight tapped her front hooves together, and glanced at Spike, who was pretending to not be staring at the snowy white furred Captain, to a very poor degree of success.

The Captain looked at her for a moment, before putting a comforting hoof on her shoulder, "Well I'm sure Equestria will be a perfect experience for you." she said, smiling, "In my own, humble experience, I've found that there's nothing _quite_ like the feel of a planet beneath one's hooves."

Twilight nodded. She'd read enough books about planets to be fairly familiar with what she'd be expecting. First of all was the entry into the planet itself, where the friction of the air rushing past the shuttle would cause it to heat up to more than 1500 degrees and surround it in superheated ionized gases. Of course, the shuttle was more than capable of withstanding these temperatures thanks to a combination of active thermal protection and reinforced ceramic heat shields in the nose and leading edges, leaving only a pretty li-

"Eep!"

Twilight caught a bright, orange flash in the corner of her eye and nearly leapt off her seat. Spike momentarily forgot about Rarity and turned to look at what had startled Twilight.

Outside, the shuttle's wing had been enveloped in a fierce orange glow as they hit atmosphere. Twilight and Spike stared at it, mesmerized. The lavender unicorn vaguely heard Rarity giggle at her actions.

And to think she hadn't even touched the ground yet…

* * *

><p>Twilight had done plenty of research on planets. She'd taken a break from her studies in magic to delve into anything that might be of any use on a planet. Geography, geology, atmospherics, architecture… she'd dived into a torrent of text, images and holovids.<p>

However, all of that information had failed to prepare her for this.

The moment she took one step out of the shuttle, she was mugged by her own senses. A nose used to canned, filtered air was suddenly full of a thousand different smells, some of which she had no clue as to what they were. Eyes who had previously beheld everything under the illumination of artificial lights were nearly blinded by the bright glare of Epona, the skin beneath her lavender fur suddenly bathed in warm infrared. She blinked, narrowing her eyes to slits to see through the glare.

Canterlot Spaceport was big, to the scale of some spaceports on the Core Worlds. It occupied an area of little more than a hundred square kilometers, most of it dedicated to the commercial pads, capable of holding even the absurdly massive ATMS-1000 _Pelican_ with some room to spare. Captain Rarity's shuttle had alighted on one of the smaller, private landing pads and was already occupied by two other shuttles. It was relatively isolated from the coming and going of commerce and migration, with noise cancellers contributing to lessening the din. But even so, one could hear the faint echo of the roar of thrusters igniting on commercial shuttles, with the gentle hum of countless antigravs murmuring beneath it all. Twilight's ears twitched at the noise, before she shook her head to clear the sensory overload.

_Okay, Twilight. Just breathe, in and out. No reason to get excited. Just… concentrate on not making a foal of yourself._

She climbed down the steps, Rarity right behind her. A shadow ("_A_ _cloud," _her mind told her, "_driven by pegasi.")_ passed overhead, obscuring the sun for a moment and allowing her eyes to wander upwards.

She gasped, and Spike gave an appreciative whistle from her back.

_The sky! Oh, dear Celestia, the sky!_

It was a perfect expanse of blue, dotted here and there by fluffy white clouds. It yawned above her head, apparently endless.

Twilight had experienced true vastness before, a lifetime of cheery spacehabs, sterile research centers and the confusing mishmash of the many expansions of the Deep Space Academy of Science and Magic had accustomed her to the infinity. But those views had always been from behind the safety of a thick screen of layered PVA-M, or by means of holoscreens and cameras.

Now, there was no obstruction to block her view of the sky. It occupied her entire field of view, and her mind suddenly realized just how _big_ the verdant world she had seen from orbit was, and just how _small_ the biggest space structure she had been in was in comparison. Her mind kept on going, and she remembered that this sky was nothing compared to the infinity of space she had previously regarded as commonplace, and she felt very small indeed.

"Uh, Twi? Your mouth's hanging open."

Spike's voice brought her out of her reverie, and she snapped her mouth shut, blushing in embarrassment.

_So much for not making a foal out of myself._

Thankfully, Rarity made no mention of it, and bade her to follow, animatedly talking to her all the while.

"Weather control… I definitely missed _that_. It's so lovely to arrive to weather like this." She mused, "It always seems to be raining every time I make planetfall somewhere."

Twilight nodded numbly, if only to demonstrate that she was listening, her mind still grinding over the yawning expanse above her. Both mares left the shuttle behind and entered a covered walkway that into terminal proper, the outside noises vanishing past steel, glass and noise absorbent materials. Twilight shook her head again to clear her mind, and couldn't help but be thankful for the slightly familiar environment.

Meanwhile, Rarity kept on talking.

"I always wondered why no other planet I've been to has pegasi working the weather." The snowy white unicorn thought out loud.

"That's because weather control is tied to environmental magic, which is something unique to the Traveller systems." Twilight recited automatically, "And even then, only a percentage of the planets have magic across their entire surface. Most planets have only isolated pockets that generate arcanic fields strong enough to permeate the environment and allow manipulation by magic."

Rarity blinked, "Really?"

"Yeah. In fact, since we're both unicorns, I think we should be able to feel…" Twilight drifted off, reaching out with her powers like the e-book had told her, careful to only let a measured trickle of it through. She felt a sudden surge as she opened up to the flow of magic around her, shifting and changing to her touch. She retreated, thinking it best if she left it alone.

She realized that Rarity and she had stopped walking, the snowy white Captain frowning in concentration. "Sorry dear, but I can't seem to feel anything." She said.

Twilight gave a small shrug, "Don't worry, it's a very advanced spell… and fairly recent. It hasn't had much time to be refined properly yet."

Rarity giggled, "Well, if you can pull it off, I can certainly see why you're Celestia's pupil! You must have an _amazing _talent!"

The lavender unicorn allowed herself a small smile. "Thank you."

"Oh, don't even mention it! Now, we really must hurry, no sense in keeping the Princess waiting!"

* * *

><p>The interior of Canterlot Spaceport had been designed with pony aesthetics in mind. The walls were a pearly white, and adorned with reds, greens blues and gold, and patterns intended to emulate nature in its absence inside the artificial structure. Elegant pillars supported the ceiling high above, with paintings of vines curling up their height. The color shifted to blue as they neared the ceiling, which was made entirely of glass, with bronze plated, high strength alloy beams holding it up like a golden spider web. The overall effect was that one could almost imagine oneself already being outside.<p>

The key word being "_almost_". It was still quite obvious that they were inside. Cheerful advertisements shone from holoscreen stands, and a soothing music played from speakers. The building was crowded, although not as much as the _Kasztanka_ was. It was most probably because, with all their papers already in order, few things impeded the arrivals, who were all too eager to leave for their destinations.

However, there was little time to dwell inside, so both unicorn mares hurried along. They passed one of the arrival areas, where a crowd of ponies and even a few humans were gathered. Occasionally, somepony would push through the crowd and gallop towards one of the arriving officers. Rarity tried to see if she could spot somepony she knew amongst the crowd, but she failed to see a familiar face.

Come to think of it, it was most likely because she hadn't told anypony that she'd arrived earlier than expected. Oops.

Twlilight seemed fascinated with _everything_; the young mare had been in awe since they'd left the shuttle and Rarity had a difficult time constraining her giggles. Who would've thought that Celestia's prized student, a unicorn surely beyond her own meager ability, would be so adorable?

They boarded one of the maglev trains heading to the main terminal, the little dragon –Spike, wasn't it? - insisting that Rarity have a window seat. Rarity had previously thought her uniform would look conspicuous amongst the civilians, but there were enough officers around them that no one seemed to notice an extra mare in TDN blues. She couldn't help but notice how the uniforms of the other officers seemed to be incapable of fitting the wearer properly half the time. Why, if she could make the uniforms of every single one of her crew fit the wearer, surely it couldn't be that hard for other ships to do so, right?

Speaking of something else she couldn't help but notice, Twilight seemed to be acting a bit… odd. The younger mare seemed to have gotten jumpier after they had boarded the maglev, flinching every time the train stopped at a station and opened its doors.

"Are you okay?" she asked, concerned.

"Yes! I'm perfectly fine and I'm not terrified about being sucked into space!" Twilight quickly answered, her words tripping over themselves in her haste.

There was an awkward pause.

The snowy white unicorn gave Twilight a confused look, "What makes you think you'll get sucked into space, dear?" she asked.

"Nothing! Nothing at all! Didn't you hear me? I'm _not_ worried about being sucked into space and dying horribly in vacuum!" The lavender unicorn said, and smiled, as if to further convince her of her claims. "See! I'm not worried! Not a bit!"

There was another awkward pause. A few fellow passengers glanced their way, but Rarity made them find other subjects of interest with a look. She then went back to Twilight, whose smile had become more forced and nervous, if anything.

"Twilight, please don't take this the wrong way, but you are a terrible liar." Twilight's smile deflated with Rarity's words, "Now, dear, please tell me what's wrong."

Twilight seemed to shrink. "It's just… I've lived my entire life surrounded by bulkheads, and now that I'm not…" She stammered, before shaking her mane to clear her head again. "Ugh! How do I say this? It's as if…I know, intellectually, that the planet's gravity keeps the air from escaping, that the magnetosphere keeps it from being blown off and that the sky is _perfectly harmless_ …But there's a part of my brain that _insists_ that, unless I have something solid between me and the outside, I'm going to get blown off the ground." She said, rubbing the sides of her head. "I _know_ there's nothing to be afraid of and that nothing's going to happen to me, but…"

"…But it doesn't stop your mind from imagining things." Rarity finished for her.

Twilight sighed, nodding. "I guess." Rarity turned her head to look out the window, watching the various buildings and terminals of the spaceport rush past as the maglev train headed for its next stop.

"I remember the first time my ship came under fire." She began, "It was in one of the core ward systems, just beyond the siege line. We were passing through an asteroid field on our way to picking up some refugees at a mining camp."

"We were jumping to the next gravity well when some Vasari ships came out of phase space a few thousand kilometers away. There couldn't have been more than five or so, some frigates and a couple of their cruisers." The ghost of a smile crept into her muzzle, "Thinking back, that must've been the _least_ challenging foe my ship would face for a while."

"And what did you do?" Spike asked, obviously enraptured beyond what Rarity felt appropriate. Twilight simply listened.

"Well, our phase drive had nearly finished powering up, and we were on a schedule, so we simply couldn't stay there to thrash them." Rarity gave an absent shrug, "The Colonel had engineering keep charging the drives, while the aliens opened fire."

"The first rounds were stopped by our shields, nothing serious. After that came the missiles." She rubbed her chin with her hoof in though, "I don't know how many those ruffians threw at us, but a couple of them made it through the shields and hit the ship."

The train stopped at another terminal, opening its doors to allow an assortment of passengers to board. Rarity kept on talking.

"It was like somepony had hit the hull with an enormous sledgehammer." She paused, to give a measure of dramatic tension.

"And then?" This time, it was Twilight who was eager for her to continue. "Was it… a hull breach?"

Rarity stared grimly at the other unicorn for a moment, before laughing, shaking her head.

"Of course not, dear! Oh, it would've taken a lot more than _that_ to breach a meter and a half of Repelon armor plating!"

"It did not, however, prevent me from making an absolute spectacle of myself." She added, "Even though we were in no real danger, and moments from jumping away, I was terrified." She chuckled at the memory, "The Colonel even _swears_ I fainted at one point! Later on, after my fright had passed, I couldn't help but be ashamed of myself for showing such terror against what had merely been a bit of danger."

"I asked the Colonel about it, and he told that it was because the worst kind of fear doesn't come from what's happening around you." She raised her hood and tapped her own forehead, "It comes from _here_. If a part of you _thinks_ you're in danger, it'll inject all sorts of fantasies into your mind to justify itself, no matter how illogical this fear is."

"However, "she continued, "If you _know_ that you're in danger, then it's because said danger is something _real_, and therefore something you can evaluate and plan against. Several times after that, I would find myself in a position in which I was _sure_ the chances of coming back home were slim, and I would feel less afraid than I was that day."

Twilight looked slightly startled at Rarity's almost casual admission of several near-death experiences. "So, how did you do it?" Twilight asked, "Deal with that, I mean."

Rarity gave an equine shrug, "I simply learned to think of something else. If I was scared to death of being hit in a warship, I wouldn't have gotten much done, now would I?" she said, giving her a cheeky smile.

"I guess not." Twilight agreed.

"So, instead of thinking of wherever or not you'll get blown into space, focus on what you _should_ be doing, "Rarity gestured grandly at the blue sky outside, "like enjoying this beautiful, sunny day, for instance!"

The lavender unicorn peered out the window, and gave a small nervous smile.

"I guess I will."

* * *

><p>Fighter Hangar number eight was one of ten such structures orbiting Equestria in geosynchronous orbit. The design of this kind of orbital hangar was a fairly recent, being unveiled by Cyclone Security Services about a year before the coming of the Vasari. While a ways more expensive than an orbital Gauss cannon, it is much more thickly armored, and the fighters and bombers stationed there can reach anywhere in a planet's gravity well, negating any ranged advantage potential attackers might have.<p>

Its strong and modular design, as well as its ease of manufacturing compared to other, more complex structures had caused it to be very popular among TEC forces. Some corporations and nations on the Siege Line had taken to adding improvised flak batteries to it, as an improvised defense against Vasari fighters. Cyclone Security Services, seeing a good business when they saw one, had started offering flak cannons as an optional extra to buyers.

Equestria, being far from the Siege Line, had no such attachments on its hangars. There simply hadn't been much need for them, although Pinkie Pie, Chief Engineer and unofficial Master of Parties of hangar number eight couldn't help but feel a longing for shells full of timed explosives, as well as an odd twitch to the left of her spleen whenever she thought about it.

She'd already sent several mails to Equestrian High Command on wherever or not they could get some flak batteries for "her" hangar, but she'd been politely refused each time. Even though she could see the reasoning behind this, there still was that nagging twitch that told her that mounting a few FLAC-186 50mm _Heylekin_ light auto cannons would be a good idea.

The rest of the hangar staff mostly agreed with her premonition, quite familiar with the pink mare's oddities, of which there were many. For starters, she was an Earth pony that was not uncomfortable with the idea of living in space, something which raised some eyebrows. When asked about this, her answer was usually along the lines of: "Well, the party's up here, silly! Why shouldn't I be here?"

However, what was arguably the most unique and odd quality in the pink mare's repertoire was what the hangar's denizens had come to call "Pinkie sense", which was now telling her that very bored and tired Rainbow Dash was approaching for a landing, via a slight pinch in her left hind hoof.

Smiling, she stopped working on the ion drive containment ring No. 4 on Blue October's ASB-154 bomber, which was acting up _again_. It'd been rerouting power in weird ways for a week now, and her fellow wrenchponies had been confused about it until her Pinkie Sense had cleared up the issue. Turning her back on the partially disassembled bomber, she bounced towards the big toolbox where she kept all her tools and doodads. She pushed her goggles up to her forehead and sat on her haunches, using a rag she pulled out from a pocket on the overall she was wearing to clean off the assorted grease and oil her forehooves and muzzle had been covered in. Returning the rag to its place, she took a paper bag that was sitting on top of the toolbox in her mouth and merrily bounced over to the Strike Craft bays, humming a song as she did so.

She only had to wait outside the airlock for a few minutes before there were the familiar sounds of closing airlock doors and the whooshing of air. Rainbow Dash herself soon emerged, still in her flight suit, sans the helmet. Her unruly mane looked even more messed up than usual, and there was a dull and exhausted look to her eyes.

"Oh, hey there Pinkie," She said, her voice flat, and her eyes traveled towards the bag in Pinkie's mouth, "is that what I think it is?" she asked.

Pinkie Pie dropped the paper bag on the floor, and grinned, "Weeeell, if you were thinking "Ooh, is it those _awesome_ cupcakes that Pinkie Pie makes every tenthsday?", then yes, it is!" She nosed the bag open, letting the scent of warm, fresh cupcakes waft out. Reaching in, she took one out and waved it in front of Dash's face, giggling as the polychromatic Pegasus went crossed-eyed trying to focus on it. "Aaand here's one of 'em!" she teased.

It took only a moment for Rainbow Dash to have enough of Pinkie Pie's japing and snatched the colorful cupcake from Pinkie's hooves and took a purposeful bite out of it, her face sour.

She slowly chewed, Pinkie Pie grinning in anticipation.

"So?" she asked, leaning in.

Rainbow Dash kept on chewing slowly, seemingly having a harder and harder time keeping up her image of a bad mood.

She swallowed, and Pinkie Pie suddenly leaned closer still, causing the Pegasus to jerk back.

"Sooooo?" The pink pony insisted. "How'd you like my anti-grumpy-pants cupcake?"

Rainbow Dash valiantly tried to maintain her unlively demeanor.

"Well, it's…it's…" She stammered, before giving up the fight and cracking a smile, "Dammit, Pinkie! It's impossible to stay angry at anything around you!"

Pinkie Pie puffed up her chest in pride. "Well of course it is! Pinkie Pie is having no grumpy faces around here, no siree! Oooh, I bet all the other hangars are full of Grumpy Mc. Grumpypants and those meanie CAGs that shout at everypony and tell them to drop down and give them fifty." The pink mare started rambling, her mouth quickly changing subject according to whatever thought process went on in her brain, "Did you now the instructor once had me give him fifty? I asked him if he wanted fifty cupcakes or fifty parties and he got reeeaaally mad and started shouting and got red in the face and I was asking him how he wanted those fifty parties and he said -"

"Pinkie Pie, you're doing it again." Rainbow nonchalantly interrupted her friend, licking her face clean of crumbs and frosting from a long eaten cupcake.

Pinkie Pie cocked her head, her pink mane bouncing as she did so. "Really? I'm sorry but I'm _really_ excited since this morning my Pinkie Sense kept telling me that something _huge_ was coming and I was going _crazy_ waiting for it to show up. And then this huge fleet comes out of nowhere and I'm like: "Ohmygosh! Look at all those ships! I bet there are a lot of ponies coming back home from the war with the Meanie Pie aliens and they could _all_ use a super-extra-duper epic party!", but then the Hangar master is all like: "No! You must stay here while I drink all the whiskey in my fridge! All of it!" And now I'm doing it _again!_" She exclaimed, prancing in place in excitement.

Rainbow Dash couldn't help but laugh at the exaggerated, but otherwise accurate portrayal of their boss. "Yeah, that's 'im all right! Has anyone ever told you how completely random you are?" she commented.

The pink mare bounced in place, "Yup!" She said, "Mostly you."

Still chuckling, Rainbow Dash nosed the paper bag on the floor, "Well, you go and finish whatever it you were doing. I'll wait for you in the shuttle with these." She said, and took the bag full of pastries. "Fthee ya!" she managed to say around the bag she held in her mouth, and trotted off to the changing rooms to take off her Flight Suit and assorted paraphernalia.

Happy that Dash had had her mood improved; Pinkie Pie bounced back towards engineering. The Pegasus had been a friend of hers since they'd met at one of her parties, where the polychromatic mare had discovered the…_interesting_ effect alcohol had on her person. She'd found her passed out on the rooftop, and had brought her to her own apartment to recover. Since then, their friendship had grown quite well, with Pinkie keeping the hotheaded and impulsive mare away from trouble, defusing most situations simply by bouncing in and being herself.

This was a good thing, since trouble seemed to be naturally attracted to Rainbow Dash in the same way a magnet would attract another. _Especially_ after rumors had started flying around, mostly centered on exactly which way Rainbow's door swung. That ponies seemed to have absurdly long memories when it came to remembering someone else's alcohol-induced behavior helped things even less.

Pinkie Pie held a hoof to the biometrics lock outside Engineering, and the device confirmed it was indeed her, opening the door with a _whoosh!_ Singing a little ditty, she bounced inside and went back to fixing the ion drive containment ring No. 4 on Blue October's ASB-154 bomber, a part of her mind drawing the bare bones plans for a party to welcome back as many war-weary veterans as she could.

* * *

><p><em>Accessing Trade Order Council files…<em>

_Accesing file 1487jdeswo237i…_

_Loading: Sentence against the Horizon group by Director General Alfernas Ghalahan of the Investigation Directorate …Done_

_Playing audio…_

"_In the name of the Investigation Directorate, I am here to present our findings surrounding case number five five one seven six zero. Approximately ten standard weeks ago, we received, from an anonymous source, evidence of possible forbidden business practices at asteroid Muira, Talfernas system, sector forty five. We sent a team of investigators, who shall remain nameless, to confirm these findings."_

"_People of the Council, what we found was __**conclusive**__ evidence that the Horizon group had been conducting illegal and ghastly experiments, amongst which were the creation of entirely synthetic life, genetic experimentation, unnecessary neural implantation and a systematic violation of the Rights of Sentient Beings. Our investigators had to restrain themselves to not intervene and perform their duty."_

"_After collecting a sufficient amount of incriminating evidence, we authorized the formation of a strike team composed of elements from Serveraz Security, Radoon's Die Hards, and the freelancer Marza-class planetoid destroyer "Oblenz", amongst others, to perform an insertion at the site. The facility attempted a self-destruct, but was stopped by the intervention of the crew of the freelancer Kodiac-class debris clearer "Alfa", who performed impromptu boarding operations."_

"_After the facility was secured and everything was documented, the facility, as well as its asteroid, was destroyed by the spinal cannon of the "Oblenz" to prevent it from being used by others."_

"_As per request of the Princessipality of Equestria, all surviving… subjects have been transferred to their care. Their exact numbers and identities have been declared secret by the Directorate for their own safety."_

"_Following the success of the strike team, we have apprehended all involved personnel from the Horizon group. Subsequent trials have found them guilty of all charges."_

"_And so, in the name of the Trade Order, I hereby order the disappearance of the Horizon group, the freezing of all banking accounts related to the Horizon group, the dismissal of all its personnel, the dismantlement of all its facilities, the selling of all its property that has not been seized by the Directorate and the application of a Universal Trade Sanction towards any involved, so should they ever escape exile, imprisonment of death, they may they spend the rest of their days alone and hungry in some wretched corner of the galaxy."_

"_That is all."_

_Audio file end._


	3. Chapter 3

====================  
><em>Friends of a Solar Empire<em>  
>====================<p>

They'd seen each other off at the main gate, a pair of unicorn ponies in the black suits and dark glasses of Her Solar Majesty's Secret Service lifting Twilight's saddlebags into the boot of a sleek, white and gold hovercar. Rarity had given them some contact information, should they ever need her help with anything.

"-and I do insist," She said just before the suited ponies closed the door, "we _must_ see each other afterwards. There is so _much_ of Equestria you have to see, and I simply cannot let you miss any of it!"

Twilight gave an equine shrug from her seat, "I'll see what I can do… it'll all depend on what the Princess wants me here for."

Rarity gave a dismissive wave of her hoof, "Oh, I'm sure her Highness wouldn't object to you having some fun while you're here." She raised a hoof in a wave, "Take care dear!"

The door was snapped shut by the suited ponies, who then took their seats in the front. The hovercar rose from the ground, and glided away; Spike looking longingly at the rapidly receding unicorn through the rear window, his infant draconian mind full of her. Her lustrous mane, her beautiful eyes, her shining coat, the way the TEC Defense Navy uniform fitted her, that clear, crystalline voice that sounded like diamonds…

"Spike, just what are you looking at?"

The dragon was jolted out of a wonderful daydream by a concerned Twilight. Sighing, he sat back on the plush seat, Rarity's contact information running through his head all the while. She lived in someplace called Ponyville, near the capital.

Clenching a tiny dragon claw, he set his face into a look of pure determination. Celestia above, he'd find a way to see that beautiful mare once more, even if was the last thing he did!

Twilight rolled her eyes at her assistant's silent theatrics, and went back to reading a simply _fascinating_ article on the city of Cloudsdale.

_(Taken from: Voyager Weekly, 20/9/3579 APD.)_

_The city of Cloudsdale, pegasi capital of Equestria, is quite possibly the best example of how well the younger races have embraced the technology brought by our ancestors nearly a millennium ago. The entire city is airborne and highly mobile, buildings and entire city blocks are kept aloft by high efficiency antigravs, or magically in the case of cloudsculped structures._

_Cloud-walking shoes are a must for humans or ground bound equines, as you'll otherwise miss the city's most emblematic sites, such as the historical center, the Goldwing stadium, the Skygardens, and the Weather Factory (see our next article for more details). For convenience, the Equestrian Royal museum is in an antigrav section, as are most of the hotels and more modern establishments._

_Of course, the aerial nature of the city presents a challenge for the unprepared visitor. There are few roads in Cloudsdale, beyond small side roads within the "clouds" (a local term for a city block, dating back to the city's original construction and applicable to even the antigrav lifted sections), as the various sections move to and fro according to convenience, although the city itself maintains its position. Retractable bridges will link clouds of similar altitudes, and ramps will allow for wingless travel between clouds of different altitudes, but only when they are the right distance for a link. Visitors are cautioned to obey all warnings of unsafe times to transit ramps and bridges. Pegasi traffic patrols will catch you before you come to harm, but the scolding and fines might make you wish they hadn't (don't ask). _

_Due to the complex ways in which the city might change over the course of the day, it is recommended that a visitor planning to travel more than a few clouds from their lodgings either hire a guide, use a aircab, or at the least invest in a local navigator app loaded and enabled for real time updates. The reviewer found "CloudTrotter" to be particularly adept, even able to suggest the best routes based on your expected pace and link times. The routes were roundabout at times but very interesting for the tourist. Standard nav apps do poorly when confronted with variable three dimensional directions._

_The city's center should be the first stop for any tourist. Composed entirely from freestanding cloudsculpted buildings (with the exception of the enchanted bridges leading in from the few antigrav "clouds" that have managed to sneak close by), it's an excellent example of the handsome classical pre-Celestian pegasus style of architecture, and a must-see for visitors who wish to have a more in-depth visit to this city…_

Rarity waved goodbye at the departing hovercar, watching it glide across the pavement. It then took off, gracefully joining the traffic heading for Canterlot.

Nodding in satisfaction, she headed back into the terminal. The automatic glass doors closed behind her, and a gentle air-conditioned breeze caressed her purple mane.

And then something small and loud completely and utterly blindsided her, crashing into her shoulder.

"SIS!"

Sweetie Belle's impact would have sent her sister tumbling over; if Rarity hadn't had plenty practice at keeping herself on her hooves. As it was, she merely stumbled, surprised at the sudden appearance of the filly now clinging to her neck.

"You're here! You're here!"

"Goodness gracious, get off! You'll-" Rarity started to admonish her sister, but then her mind caught up to what was happening and she quickly forgot about the state of her mane, "Sweetie Belle?" she gasped, "You're here already? Oh, look at you, you're even more of a darling in the flesh!" she gave her little her little sister an affectionate nuzzle, and put a hoof around her, while the little filly squealed with joy.

They stood there for a moment, the crowd moving around the at long last united siblings.

The moment dragged on, until Rarity spoke.

"Sweetie Belle, did you come here on your own?" she asked.

Sweetie Belle giggled "Of course not! Derpy brought me!"

"And where is Derpy now?"

The unicorn filly went very still.

"Oops." she whispered sheepishly.

Rarity sighed, with a patience born from shepherding panicky civilians around. "Sweetie Belle…" she started to say, before she heard a commotion behind her.

Turning, she was rewarded with the sight of a flustered pegasus mare with a grey coat flying over the crowd, desperately looking for something. She was wearing…

She was wearing…

Celestia's mane, the…_thing_ she was wearing…

The pegasus spotted them and slumped in visible relief. As she approached, and Rarity came to see a more and more detailed view of the pegasus's outfit, coming into what might be described as a state of utter shock. Her mind simply stopped working, her posture went rigid, and her mouth hung wide open.

Captain Rarity, veteran of The War, and witness to some of the most abject brutality of the Vasari, was brought into shocked horror by the outfit Derpy Hooves was now wearing.

_Th… That horrible jacket! That scarf! What, in the name of all that's holy, is that thing around her neck! And that __**hat**__…!_

"Miss Rarity!" Derpy Hooves, mareservant of the Shining Light Mining Company estate, called out. She landed in front of her, the pegasus's eyes rolling around in opposite directions before locking on in front. "Oh, thank Celestia!" she panted, "I was looking all over of her! Must've taken off while I was-" Ditzy stopped, taking notice of Rarity's expression. She gulped, "Miss Rarity? Is everything okay?"

The unicorn blinked, eyes feverishly trying to _not _see Ditzy's outfit.

""Okay?" _"Okay!"_ Have you _seen_ the _abomination_ you are _wearing!_ _How can anything be okay with such a thing in existence!_ My word, what possessed you to put on that _horrible_ getup!" Rarity nearly screeched in hysterics, wildly gesturing with a hoof and barely managing to restrain herself from bolting over there to rectify what she thought was little short of heresy. "That jacket looks like it came from a flea market fifty years ago! Those colors clash with your coat in a most _dreadfull and horrific_ way, that purple scarf has no business being on your neck and that _hat..._"

She paused mid-rant, bringing a hoof to her chin, "Actually, that hat suits you quite well, dear."

Sweetie Belle, who until then had detached herself from Rarity and had done a swell job of going unnoticed, piped up, "Really?" she said.

Rarity looked from her sister, to her mareservant's atrocious outfit, and back again.

"Sweetie Belle, _please_ tell me that outfit wasn't your idea."

The filly smiled sheepishly, rubbing the inside of her forehoof.

Rarity sighed; her absence had had greater consequences than she'd previously thought.

Despite its importance to ponykind, and also despite its position as capital of the Equestrian Kingdom, Canterlot was, in fact, an average-sized city.

Of course, this comparison only holds true against other Lesser Core Worlds of a similar population, such as Cirno or Barranca, to say nothing of monstrosities like Tarev or Karak, whose entire biospheres have been reengineered to feed the population, or of true Core Worlds, where the population, sometimes in excess of a hundred billion souls, has spread up into space, into hundreds and even thousands of massive interlinked stations capable of housing millions.

That didn't make it any less _huge_.

The capital of Equestria had spread over the mountainsides, arranging itself in concentric terraces. Skyscrapers dug their foundations deep into the very backbone of the mountain, and reached up into the sky, glowing with afternoon's light reflected by glass, polished steel and aluminum. Hovercars flew in from elsewhere, dropping down from their cruising altitudes to join the early afternoon traffic. The craft holding Twilight and Spike did otherwise, soaring past the upper levels of the tallest buildings and gaining altitude as it reached its destination.

The Royal Palace, the administrative seat of Equestria and her colonies. Sitting on a platform carved out of the mountain, it was a semicircle of glass, steel and bronze, curving up towards its center into a tall, elegant spire, with five smaller ones around it.

The hovercar descended, alighting in an air pad hidden behind the third smaller spire.

There was a momentary pause, before the door was swung open by a suited unicorn, letting Twilight and Spike hop out of the vehicle. The lavender unicorn blinked, her eyes still unused to the glare of the sun. Waiting just outside the glass doors leading into the building and shadowed by a quartet of Secret Service ponies, was her mentor; Her Solar Majesty, Princess Celestia.

The Alicorn of the Sun seemed to glow in Epona's light, both her coat and various regalia possessing a shine that Twilight couldn't recall her mentor ever having, neither in holovids, nor in any of the times the Princess had visited her in whatever research facility she called home at the time. Her mane flowed like an aurora, moving as if caught by a gentle breeze. She smiled at the sight of Twilight and Spike, the former wasting little time in making her way towards her, whilst the infant dragon followed closely behind. Seeing her approach, the Princess's escort made so as to let them through their ranks, whispering code words into tiny microphones.

Celestia looked down at her student, and spoke, her voice clear and bright.

"My most faithful student," she said, "are you enjoying your visit?"

Twilight gave a bow of her head, before answering, "Yes, Princess, althought it's been..." she paused for an appropriate word, "a bit... overwhelming. Not that it's a bad thing!" She hurried to add, "It's just that... eh... the experience has had me in a bit of sensory overload and... eh..." Twilight stammered, rubbing the inside of her foreleg with a hoof, "Forgive me, it's hard to put it into words."

Celestia chuckled, "Twilight, poets and philosophers have spent _ages_ attempting to articulate the very same thing. You have no need to worry. Now, let us get inside. There's much I wish we talk about."

The group went inside, a white-clothed servant carrying Twilight's luggage despite her insistence.

They traveled through a tunnel, designed to bring in dignitaries to the presence of the Princess in privacy, without having to pass through the rest of the building. It was a simple affair, with blue plaster walls and a red carpet beneath their hooves. Light was provided by a long strips of LEDs set into the edges of the roof, covered by ground glass to diffuse the glow. It ended at an elevator, its shaft set into the mountain that formed the building's back, with a small alcove set into its left, a small painting of flowers hanging from the wall.

The elevator opened on their approach, and Celestia and Twilight went inside, accompanied by only a pair of Secret Service ponies. The doors closed, and the elevator started its journey upwards.

"I trust your journey here was mostly uneventful?" Celestia asked, before quickly adding, "Besides the obvious."

Twilight winced slightly, recalling her near-neurotic breakdown in the station, "Yes, Princess," she said, "it was all going pretty smoothly until… well…" she nervously kicked the floor with a hoof, "I'm sorry I got held up by the traffic, I should've known-"

"Twilight," Celestia silenced her student, placing a hoof to her chin, "as I've told you before, there's no way you can anticipate everything, no matter how well you prepare for it. There's simply no way you could've predicted the sheer level of traffic we'd be receiving today. Why, _we_ barely had enough warning to prepare. You have nothing to be sorry for."

Twilight nodded, silently berating herself. Of course it wasn't her fault. It wasn't anyone's fault, really. It was just bad luck, plain and simple. _Coincidence._

Her left ear twitched.

Seeing that her student wasn't going to be letting that go anytime soon, Celestia quickly changed the subject.

"But enough of that," she said, "it's been quite some time since we've had time to speak to each other face to face. I'd very much like to know what has happened in the interim… oh, we're here already."

Indeed, the elevator had reached its destination. The doors slid open, and the group emerged in a large, teardrop-shaped office, with wooden floors and paneled walls. An old desk, decorated with images of the sun and moon, stood at the opposite end, where the room narrowed. A pair of bookcases were mounted of the walls on either side of it, and filled with tomes. Behind it, a balcony opened to the outside. The center of the room was dominated by a round rug, embroidered with the equestrian Sun and surrounded by a quintet of comfortable-looking equine seats.

Paintings of scenes lifted from equestrian history hung from the walls. One portrayed the joining of the three tribes, with a group of pegasi, unicorns and earth ponies huddling together in midst of a terrifying blizzard. Another was of The Founding of Canterlot, with Celestia herself leading a crowd of ponies towards the mountain range that would become the city's foundations, the sun setting behind them. A third, much larger one, was a rendition of First Contact Day, with Celestia leading a cohort of nobles towards a gaggle of human diplomats, in turn led by a representative of the council -a chipper-looking woman with red hair-, part of the diplomatic shuttle which brought them visible behind them. A fourth painting, much smaller in size, was an artist's impression of the _Endless Sky_, Flagship of the Equestrian Self Defense Force, shortly after having been purchased nearly 700 years ago.

Twilight, however, ignored all these things and instead found her eyes drawn towards the bookshelves at either side of the entrance, looking at them hungrily.

While there was no shortage of literature in the Trade Order, physically printed books were a far more expensive commodity that their virtual counterparts. Twilight herself had a whole library stored in her personal computer -never mind the newsletters and magazine subscriptions- but only owned a few hardcover tomes. These books -some texts on magical theory and practice, and old compliation of children's tales her mother had given to her as a foal, and a novel with the author's autograph ("Keep shining Twilight!"-A.L.C.)- were nevertheless amongst her most cherished possessions, and quite valuable too.

There was something special about holding and reading a book, something one simply didn't get from an e-text.

With great reluctance -and prodding from Spike-, Twilight tore her eyes from the rows of book and walked towards the cushy seats set around the carpet, Celestia having already taken a seat herself. The suited bodyguards stayed only a moment, before returning to the elevator.

Hopping atop a cushion next to where the Princess was, Twilight laid down upon it, Spike leaving his spot on her back to take a seat as well.

The unicorn looked at the Princess, expectantly.

"So, " she started, "what now?"

Princess Celestia chuckled. "First of all, I'd like to know what has happened since we last spoke."

Twilight cocked her head. "Why?" she asked, "I thought Mom and Dad still sent reports."

"They do." Celestia answered, and angled her head closer to Twilight, "But I'd like to hear it from you, personally."

"Oh!" Twilight realized what the Princess meant, "Well... I've been studying Advanced Magical Theory and Practice with help from Magos Nightingale and Scribe Agatha. It's been a bit tricky at times, since some of the spells had to be modified so that I could use them, but I've been learning a lot. For instance, I didn't know that a human could study magic!" she stopped talking at once, realizing what she'd just said. "I mean, not because of a lack of... ability- No! I... I mean-"

Celestia raised a golden-shod hoof to interrupt her. "I know what you mean." she said, her voice taking a more comforting tone. "I could hardly believe it myself when humans started graduating from Canterlot University. Apparently, their incapacity to wield magic naturally doesn't stop them from studying it, or even making their own spells. But go on."

"Okay. Well... I've been looking at some of the more complex Computer Assisted Crafting made spells by Rune Crafty." Twilight's eyes lit up at the memory, "They're so exciting! There's one spell, an Advanced Flux Flow Finder spell that's nearly eight pages long! Surprisingly robust, too..."

Twilight went at great lengths describing what she'd been learning to Celestia over the past month. Often, she would go into detail on certain spells or spell crafters. Celestia, a master in the use of magic herself, would occasionally voice her own opinions on these matters, or talk of her own knowledge, but mostly left Twilight talk.

Spike, having long ago recognized this as the most boring conversation ever, was valiantly trying to keep himself awake, deeply regretting not having taken his game-pad out of Twilight's saddlebag.

Eventually, Celestia decided to change the subject.

"You've made extraordinary progress in your studies in magic, my faithful student." She said, which caused Twilight to beam and swell with pride.

"But tell me, what else have you been up to?"

Twilight's pride rapidly gave way to confusion.

_Wait, what?_

"I'm sorry?" She asked, giving another tilt of her head.

"Magic may be your talent, Twilight, but surely you've done other things with your time." Celestia explained, "Am I right?"

Confusion quickly found that it was being upstaged by panic.

"Eh..." Twilight racked her brain trying to answer that question, "Er... Well... I..."

She rubbed her front hooves together nervously. "No?" she ventured.

Celestia sighed. "Twilight, we've talked about this, and so have your parents. I know that you find it hard to integrate yourself with others, but that's no reason for you not to _try_, at the very least."

"But Princess," Twilight protested, "my studies-"

"-are extremely important." Celestia finished for her, "But they do not have to encompass your entire life. There's a lot more to living than just work."

"Like what?" she argued.

"You could make friends." Celestia suggested, and immediately added, "Ones you actually _meet_, for once."

Spike, roused from his state of boredom by the sudden increase in temperature of the unicorn he was leaning against, groaned. "Here we go again."

Twilight's ears _twitched_. She'd touched this topic with her parents, and she did _not_ like it. Not one bit. Friends, she knew, were something she just couldn't have. Friends implied a level of trust and openness she simply could not afford. Friends implied sharing things she wasn't allowed to share. Friends were nosy, and were always looking too closely at things.

Friends also cut into her study time, and she liked studying.

"Princess," she started, sitting up on her haunches and failing to keep her annoyance with the subject at hand out of her voice, "I'm a genetically engineered unicorn with an extremely dangerous amount of magical power at her disposal, and a tendency to light herself _on fire_. _How do I make friends?_"

Celestia merely raised an eyebrow. "How do _I?_" she calmly retorted.

Twilight opened her mouth to let loose a brilliant counterpoint to that sentence... and closed it.

And opened it again.

And closed it again.

_Oh that's just not __**fair!**_

"But... I... you... _You're the Princess!_" she finally managed to blurt out.

"And you," Celestia intoned, rubbing Twilight's head with the wrist of a half open wing, "are a bright, young unicorn mare that's no different from anypony else, as far as anyone knows."

Twilight lowered her eyes and stared sullenly at the carpet.

"I don't need friends." she grumbled.

"Twilight, everyone need their friends." Celestia said, "Your parents and I have tried our best to give you the chance to relate with others on your own accord, but you have chosen, time and time again, to isolate yourself from everyone." she sighed sadly, "And so, you give me little choice."

Twilight quite suddenly remembered that the pony she was speaking to was the Princess of Equestria, and snapped her head up to look at her.

_What are you talking about? What do you mean "Little choice"? You don't mean... oh no! No! I'm a good pony! A very good pony! I didn't do anything wrong!_

"Wh- what are you going to do?" Twilight asked, fearfully.

_Please don't banish me!_

Celestia looked solemn for a moment, before a mischievous smile graced her lips.

"I, my faithful student, am going to give you an _assignment_."

"Can you believe this!" Twilight huffed. She and Spike had just left the Royal Palace, this time on a more discreet hovercar; a light grey, slightly boxy model which had no special markings. Stared out the window, and grumbled, her mood dark.

Spike, on the other hand, seemed to have had the opposite reaction to Princess Celestia's "assignment". Sitting right beside the unicorn, he rubbed his hands together in delight. To think things would go so well! Of all the places the Princess could have sent Twilight, she had chosen the one he most wished to visit.

Ponyville.

"_Hehehehehe…_" He cackled in glee. Soon, he'd be with his true love once again!

"Spike, this is no laughing matter!" Twilight snapped, startling the baby dragon, "Can't you see? The Princess wants me to… to…" She gnashed her teeth together, "_"Make friends"_. As an _"assignment_". Why would she do that!" she cried, "I am perfectly fine the way things are right now! I know everyone I could possibly ever need to know! Why would she think I need _more_ individuals in my life?"

"Because you do?" Spike ventured. At Twilight's muttering, he quickly added, "I mean, do you know _anyone_ that's not me, Shining Armor, Mom or Dad?"

Twilight thought on this, "Well…" she started.

"Online friends don't count." Spike interrupted, raising a claw.

Twilight growled, and stared out the window even more intensely.

Spike sighed. "Oh come on! It's not that bad!"

Twilight very suddenly turned her head, and glared at him.

_Oh boy_.

"I mean, you're staying at a library, in a nice, quiet little city over in the countryside." He explained, "Seriously, your house is going to be practically _made of books_. How can you not find that good?"

"The apartment's probably in a separate lodging." Twilight countered, but at the same time her glare softened.

Spike took the initiative. "What gives? You're going to be surrounded by _mountains_ of books!" he threw his arms up for emphasis. "And besides, you _already_ know somebody there."

Twilight blinked in confusion. "I do? Who-" she caught sight of Spike's immensely smug face and narrowed her eyes.

They stared at each other, before the unicorn gave sigh of resignation

"Fine." She said, and went back to staring out the window, "We'll visit Rarity. Tomorrow." She quickly added, "We still have to unpack, it's getting late, and I'd like to have a good look at that library."

"Sure thing!" Spike chirped. Oh, yes, this is _perfect!_

_Spike, you magnificent dragon!_

"So, you're saying our crew lost their seats on the shuttle?"

Colonel Rekav, or rather, the ten centimeter high representation of him being projected by Rarity's personal computer, nodded slowly, "_Yes." _He said,_ "Apparently, the shuttleline's in the habit of overselling. A lot. Bunch of our guys got a bit mad at that, good thing I was there when it happened._"

Rarity sighed, the familiar headache settling back into its usual spot, telling her that no, she wouldn't be getting away from her responsibilities that easily.

"So, you're stuck there?"

The Colonel sighed, rubbing his temples and most likely under the effects of a similar headache. "_For the time being, at least. Most of my side of the ship's staying up here anyways, to get her ready for the FNG's, so we donated some tickets. Even so, your boys and girls… well, I'm guessing 'bout a third of them will be staying in the hotel they have up here, or in the ship, until the auxiliary docks get sorted out. I'll send you your luggage when things get less crazy._"

There was a small silence. Rarity opened her muzzle to offer a suggestion, but the Colonel anticipated her, cutting her off.

"_Ma'am, as your second in command, I'd advise you against buying the shuttleline._" He said, crossing his arms, "_Again._"

The unicorn brought a hoof to her chest, as if she had been physically struck, "Oh, how you wound me you vile, vile man!" she proclaimed, "To think that I'd resort to such methods, however much more simple they may turn out to be!"

She quickly dropped the theatrics, "Still," she said, "I'm afraid I can't stick around for much longer. I really wish I could see get the crew a proper send-off like I promised, but Sweetie Belle is _extremely_ eager to drag me home, and I wouldn't dare keep my parents waiting."

The colonel dismissed her concerns with a wave, "_Don't sweat it._" He said, "_I'll explain it to the crew, I'm sure they'll understand._"

Rarity smiled. "Thank you Rekav, take care."

"_You too ma'am._"

And with that, Rekav reached forward and cut off the connection, his image vanishing.

Rarity hesitated for only a moment, before tucking the personal computer back into a pocket of her uniform. Rekav's side of the ship would be staying until a week after the Summer Sun festival, and she was fairly certain she could track down her own. She still had some time to organize _something_ for them.

"Sis, can we go home now?"

Sweetie Belle was back at her side, having seen that her private call was over, along with Derpy.

"Of course Sweetie Belle." Rarity said. "Let's get going."

Without further ado, they made their way towards the exit and out, into the parking lot. Derpy insisted on getting the hovercar while they waited right outside.

While they waited, Sweetie Belle asked her sister a question.

"Can you tell me a story?" she asked.

Rarity quirked her eyebrows, not sure if she had heard correctly. She wasn't exactly known for her talent as a storyteller.

"A story?" She asked. "Ah, I'm sorry Sweetie, but I don't know any good stories."

"Sure you do!" The filly insisted. "You must have all sorts of stories of kicking alien butt!"

Oh, _those_ stories.

"I'm not sure-" She started, but Sweetie Belle interrupted her, eager and determined to get something out of her sister.

"Tell me a story sis! Tell us! Tell us!"

Rarity sighed dramatically, "Oh I wouldn't wish to inflict old war stories on you, and I'm really not that much of a storyteller..."

_Six years previous_

An odd quirk of Phase travel was that, once the Phase Drive pulled the ship into Phase Space, it could be brought out of it by the gravity well of an object of sufficient mass. For short, in-system jumps, this could mean anything; from a planet, to an asteroid, or even a debris field from the old wars. For longer, interstellar jumps, one had to calibrate the Drive to put the ship in a "layer" of Phase Space out of which it could only be brought out of by the gravity well generated by the mass of the star on the other end of the jump.

The other odd quirk of Phase travel was that it was nearly impossible to steer when in it. So, while the Phase Drive technically had a much longer range, this meant that any jump longer than a certain distance ran the chance of missing its target, and so sending the doomed ship thousands of lightyears into the unknown. Thus, navigation computers were programed to disregard any system past a "safe zone".

Of course, this meant that spacecraft routes were fairly predictable, and it was easy to know where to point the PSIDAR in order to detect incoming ships.

To escape detection from law enforcement firms, several criminal and smuggling groups had instead created routes of their own, through series of short range jumps down a path made up of brown dwarfs, rouge planets, and other assorted cosmic debris.

Using these same routes, TEC Regional Command had planned a series of raids behind enemy lines in the hopes of disrupting whatever supply chain the Vasari had and so force them to slow down their advance and buy time for the defense to build up; and to rescue those left behind as the Vasari's invasion advanced. Kerferak, owned by the Lexmeda Corporation, was one of these worlds, a manufacturing and foodstuffs supplier for the coreward branch of the Outer Rim Trading Company and the colonies of the Galan Union. Of its population of 300 million, 70% had been evacuated by the combined efforts of many shipping and stellar liner corporations. The remaining 90 million had remained under nearly four years of Vasari rule, and it showed.

The _On To The Stars_ had arrived with the first wave of evacuation forces. It, along with its escorts, had gone down to their place on geostationary orbit to begin the evacuation, while the rest of the combat fleet remained far above, on the lookout for alien reinforcements. Debris, alien and friendly alike, drifted through space, a testament to the short-lived battle with the unprepared Vasari forces that had been present.

The _On To The Stars_, its escorts, and another Akkan -the Coalition Marine-laden _Albertine_- had settled into a defensive formation around the fragile Protev frigates, some of which would be carrying the population to safety, while others were laden with troops. Rarity's ship turned its powerful optical sensors towards the planet.

What they saw shocked the bridge crew. No one spoke a word, only the faint sounds of machinery could be heard within the CIC, as those within stared at the image that the main holoscreen was projecting. Whatever cities the planet once had had been wiped from existence, some leaving little more than scorched and cratered ground, while some sections of the planet had been pockmarked by massive holes, as if a giant hand had reached down and torn up the earth. It was a landscape that was utterly alien to the green planet this world had once been; forests had been cut down, mountains leveled for their ores, and lakes drained of their water, or it had been replaced by a noxious sludge of chemical wastes, fed to it by massive factories the invaders had built to supply their needs. The soil was now gray and lifeless.

What remained of the population had been herded into dilapidated shantytowns, huddled around these factories, who belched smoke and poison into the atmosphere, heedless of those living besides them. Other such population centers –if, indeed, they could be called even that- had sprung up around massive open mine-pits, hundreds of miles wide.

The cameras zoomed in, revealing the conditions below in all their horrific detail. People, regardless of species, crammed into tiny houses made from whatever garbage the Vasari hadn't simply taken. Muddy, crooked streets, filled with filth, riddled the ground, upon which their fellows walked.

Even from this high up, one could see that they'd been broken. They huddled together, although if it was out of cold or out of fear, they couldn't tell. Several figures lay in the mud, most likely dead.

It was the Colonel who was the first to act, pointedly clearing his throat. Everyone turned to look at him, and he spoke, his voice calm and collected.

"People, stop gawking. We're here, we've got a job to do, and they," he pointed at the scene on the holoscreen, "are depending on us to do it well. Sensors, give me a full sweep of the area, and keep those eyes peeled, I don't want any surprises. Comms, hail the _Albertine _and tell them to get those Gropos on standby."

There was a chorus of "Yes sir!"s as the bridge crew numbly turned back to their respective consoles.

The Colonel turned to address his superior officer. "Ma'am?"

Rarity sharply shook her mane, and tore her eyes from the view that had shaken her crew so. "I'm fine." She stated, "Just… a little shaken, that's all."

The Colonel didn't look like he believed a word of it, but stayed silent.

"Sir," the stallion manning the sensors console spoke up, "we have readings. Negative on Vasari."

The Colonel nodded "Good. Comms, open a command channel."

"Chanel open." The woman manning the Communications console responded instantly.

The Colonel fiddled with the tactical display, zooming into their assigned portion of the planet and selecting the largest concentrations of prisoners as targets. He started to speak, but Rarity beat him to it. Her voice was oddly flat, and missing the sophisticated airs she inflected it with. "Protev group Alfa, this is Diamond-actual. Proceed to your designated Landing Zones. Secure the area, and prepare the civilians for transport."

"Also, you are to open fire on any Vasari you encounter. No prisoners." She added, a flash of anger passing through her eyes. "Diamond-actual out."

A confirmation came in through the speakers, and a cluster of contact icons peeled away from the flotilla, heading down towards the planet.

Rakav approached Rarity, "Ma'am?" he said, sounding slightly worried.

Rarity closed her eyes, and breathed deeply. "As I said before, I'm fine." She said, regaining a bit of her usual demeanor.

.====================

Sweetie Belle deflated. "Aww…"

Rarity sighed, and finally relented. "Okay, fine! I'll tell you a story."

She racked her mind for some anecdote she could tell her sister. Something harmless, but entertaining enough. After a moment's consideration, she found one.

"Let me tell you why the Colonel isn't allowed to gamble anything anymore..."

*_Munch, munch, munch…*_

Rainbow Dash licked her lips clean of crumbs, and fished inside the bag for another cupcake. "Pinks, just what do you put into these things?" she wondered.

Pinkie Pie paused in her detailed observation of the reentry plasma that was just outside her window. They were in the shuttle that would drop them off at the Cloudbase, the Airforce base over the Everfree forest. From there Dash would fly to Ponyville, while Pinkie took her hovercar.

"It's a secret!" She giggled at Dash's question. "And I can't tell you, or it wouldn't be a secret, it would be a not-a-secret and it wouldn't be called Pinkie Pie's Secret Cupcake Recipe anymore! It would be Pinkie Pie's not-a-secret Cupcake Recipe, which is silly because all my other recipes aren't secret except the Super Spectacular Sweet Surprise and that isn't really a secret but nobody asks me what the special ingredient is because-"

"Pinkie…"

"Whoops!" the perky pink party pony giggled. She almost immediately went back to talking, albeit with a different subject. "Anyways, what do you think about a "Hooray! You're back from kicking alien flank!" party?" she asked.

Rainbow Dash, having long ago gotten used to the never-ending, constantly shifting verbal torrent that was Pinkie Pie, didn't skip a beat; "I think it 'be awesome." She said, before discarding the now-empty paper bag. She'd put it in the bin. Later.

"But just how are you going to invite those guys, I mean." She made a vague gesture with her hoof, "We don't even know anypony there!"

Pinkie Pie tapped her hooves together a centimeter from her own face. "I have _ways_, Dashie." she chuckled, "Lots and lots of ways to get people to a party!"

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow at this.

"Uh, yeah." She said.

There was silence, for a minute, before Dash spoke again.

"Listen, Pinkie, I've been thinking... you know how the Wonderbolts are been leased to the Coalition?"

"Yup!" Pinkie nodded.

"Well…" Dash rubbed the back of her neck, "I've been thinking about seeing if I could get a transfer."

Pinkie blinked, "You think you could?" she asked.

Dash shrugged with her wings. "I dunno." She admitted, "I _think_ I could. I mean, I'm the best pilot in Equestria!" she grinned at that. "That ought to count for something."

"Yeah!" Pinkie agreed. "Ohhh! I know, maybe I can come too! I bet kicking alien flank gets you all grumpy pants all the time, and I know just the party for that!"

She paused, and immediately added, "And things also get broken a lot, and I can fix that too!"

Dash chuckled at that. "Hey, how about we both apply?" she suggested.

Pinkie Pie grinned. "Yes! That's a great idea!"

They talked a bit more, swapping hypothetical tales of what would happen on the frontlines. Dash wasn't particularly worried about it. Honestly, how hard could it be?

Cloudbase, and the other five structures spread around Equestria of a similar design, was an odd structure; a pair of cylinders with three, wide, flat arms sticking out of them stacked on top of each other in such a way that, if viewed from above, it looked like a six pointed star. Assorted vehicles landed on pads located on the arms and went down lifts to the maintenance deck below to deliver their cargo, refuel, or to be stored, while ASF's were catapulted from the tips of the arms. Antigravs on the base of the building kept the whole thing aloft.

Rainbow Dash respectfully wondered if the architect was high on _something_ when they presented the design to the brass which, Dash cautiously reasoned, must have had at _least_ a pair of glasses of Vorkovan Vodka in the preceding thirty minutes. Every time she saw the thing, it gave her the shivers. It looked absurdly ominous.

Not that it stopped the occasional Ursa Major from trying to pick a fight with the thing. Fortunately, the designer, despite their hypothetical taste for locoweed, had had at least enough sense to pack the thing full of auto cannons, and plenty of space for the blank cartridges the Ministry of Natural Resources demanded be used in those situations, as well as the ubiquitous rocket-assisted rounds that were standard on all Self Defense Forces through the Trade Order.

Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie quickly got off the shuttle, saddlebags on their backs, the moment the pad stopped in the maintenance level and hurried off, towards the hub in the center. They passed other shuttles disembarking and loading passengers, mostly pegasi and unicorns, off to take their shifts in manning the defensive stations in orbit. Metal floors rang with the sound of hooves, and overhead lights lit the not very appealing interior, the occasional warning light blinking when a pad was raised or lowered.

They entered the central structure, and there they parted ways. Pinkie, along with a small herd of unicorns and a hoofull of other earth ponies, took one of the big elevators on the wall right across of them to the parking area below, chirping a "See ya Dashie!" as the doors closed.

Rainbow Dash waved her goodbye, and took the stairs right next to the shafts, going up. Elevators took too damn long in her opinion.

She trotted two floors up, left the staircase and took a left on the hallway, whose plastic floors and white and blue walls made it _slightly_ more appealing than the maintenance level.

She trotted down the hallway, which grew wider and wider until she reached a small foyer, filled with a small herd of other pegasi. A balcony opened up to the outside on the right, and from there the winged ponies took flight, towards wherever they went after a day of work. Rainbow Dash quickly made her way through the herd, pushing, nudging and squeezing through the mass of pegasi, with the occasional apology or swearing thrown in.

"Excuse me- Sorry!- Coming through- Calm the frack down will ya! Sheesh!-"

Eventually, she made it to the balcony. One of Cloudbase's arms stretched overhead, and the sun lay low on the horizon, illuminating the sky in an orange glow. Below, the Everfree forest was spread, all green and wild and overgrown. Around her, the air was filled with the roar of supercharged ion thrusters, the overlapping hum of antigravs, and hustle and bustle of coming and going pegasi.

She opened her saddlebag with one wing and fished around until she found what she was looking for: a pair of goggles. She slipped them on, and tapped a box on the side of the frame with a hoof. Instantly, her vision changed, information was projected onto the glass; altitude, speed, bearing, Planetary Positioning System coordinates, and tags for the various vehicles flying about.

Rainbow Dash crouched down, spread her wings, and took off. She rocketed straight up and slightly forward, flapping her wings once, then twice, then she folded them tight against her sides. She reached the apex of her arch, twisting her body to keep herself pointed in her direction of travel, and plummeted down. She passed the balcony, missing it by not even half a meter.

The air rushed past her, tugging at her feathers, at her mane, at her tail. It caressed her fur, sending chills through her body. Adrenalin started to trickle through her system.

She waited until she passed the 950 meter mark, and then snapped her wings open, curving her body upwards to change her direction, using the momentum gained while freefalling to pick up speed with very little effort made on her part.

She did a little loop-de-loop, cackling in delight. Finally! Free to do whatever she wanted!

*_Beep-beep!_*

A hovercar; old, worn and painted a bright neon pink pulled up to her right. A window was rolled down, and Pinkie Pie poked her head out, the wind catching on her mane and making it go wilder than usual.

"Race ya Dashie!" she called, wearing a huge grin that, Rainbow Dash knew, was being mirrored on her own face.

"Last one there's a Navy mare!" Rainbow Dash answered, and rocketed off, towards Ponyville. Behind her, she could hear Pinkie flooring her hovercar with great enthusiasm.

And, for those two friends, all was good in the world.

_(From: The Technocracy Magazine 30/7/3581)_

_**And now for something completely different: Spell rune circuits.**_

_Author: -Invocate Snark (Andrew Avrum)_

_Spell rune circuits are everywhere these days. Hardly a day goes by without someone in the Technocracy office complaining about having to secure yet another magical battery from the shops next time we're in port._

_But what are these devices, exactly? How do they work?_

_That, dear readers, is what I'm going to tell you. Otherwise, you wouldn't be reading this magazine article, you'd be doing something else, like stratospheric skydiving or whatever it is you do._

_The first thing one should know in order to understand spell rune circuits is how spells work in the first place. I'm not going to go into much detail here, because this is the Technocracy, and we don't do that stuff. If you want a detailed version, just look it up. Odds are, it's somewhere in the 'Net._

_Anyways, back to the topic at hand. Spells work by having the caster (Read: a unicorn) maintain an image of the spell in his or her mind, and channeling through that image. This exact image varies from one unicorn to another, but is still basically the same, much like how your version of last night's barhunt is slightly different from everyone else's, or how two artists paint the same gas giant differently._

_And that's what a spell rune circuit is: a physical depiction of that image. Of course, it's a lot more abstract than the image a unicorn uses, and so requires a bit more oomph (Which is why we're always short magical batteries. All the time.). The runes themselves are made out of magic-conducting crystal wire, which has to be carefully grown in a controlled environment where the magical equivalent of a sneeze can blow everything up. As a result, it is hideously expensive._

_Thanks to the miracle of miniaturization, we've managed to squeeze relatively complex spells into very small spaces, and so use up very small amounts of very expensive crystal wire making them._

_The upside of this is that, with a big enough magic battery, you can use any spell without needing to have been born with a horn. The downside is that magic batteries last way, way less than your standard hydrogen cell, unless you have a unicorn buddy, in which case I'm sorry to say that I hate you very much._

_Now, to cough up another couple dozen milicreds…_

_**Comments:**_

_Posted by: Ilikebooks_

_Something I'd like to add:_

_Unicorn's magic is greatly dependent on their special talent. A baker, for instance, will find it much harder to use spells that aren't related to baking, like teleporting. It's something explored in much more detail in Marcus Ganmond's "The nature of magic" and Examine Closeley's "Mystical Manual on all things Magical" (quite an exciting subject, but I think it's off topic here)._

_What spell rune circuits does is allow unicorns to readily use spells that aren't inherent to their special talent, without having to learn them, which can be very hard for some ponies and for some spells. Also, batteries aren't that much of an issue for us :D._

_I hope this is informative!_

_Posted by: Invocate Snark_

_ Ilikebooks: It is, and it is a lot lighter than your last post._

_Seriously, that one was longer that the article I wrote._

Much like it had in her short visit to Canterlot, the hovercar carrying Twilight was soon leaving the high-altitude traffic that had brought it to its destination, and joining the lower-altitude traffic common around cities. As they banked, spiraling down around the city, Twilight and Spike got a good look at the city.

Ponyville, as Twilight recalled from reading that historical guide she found in the Broadcast Network (two days ago, at around 3:00 A.M.), had been Equestria's first –and, so far, only- "Corporate Town". Funded with the help of the Apple Consortium in 2954 APD, it had originally been a purely agricultural establishment, providing the fast growing Canterlot, Hoofington and Manehattan with food.

In 3001, Shining Light Mining Company discovered large deposits of Crystal beneath the Everfree forest. Since open pit mining is forbidden in Equestria, and building _anything_ in the Everfree forest is forbidden by law, they were forced to tunnel into the deposits from outside its boundaries (since the law in question said nothing about building anything _under_ the Forest). Profits were scarce at first, but eventually they were able to access the larger deposits under the Everfree.

As both corporations became larger and more influential, it soon became quite clear that they were the one's running things in Ponyville, splitting the city in two. Nowdays, the Equestrian government acted as more of a mediator between both sides than any actual authority, besides a modest police force.

From the air, the divide was made quite clear. Approaching from the forest, one could see huge industrial parks and warehouses, the entry shafts for the mines, maglev tracks heading for the nearby Canterlot Spaceport, where goods would be carried off by cargo frigates and ATMS-1000 Pelican Heavy Lifters. On the other end of town, there were the high-strength polycarbonate domes of Sweet Apple Acres hydroponics farm, the packaging centers, and their maglev rail system. Nearing the center of the city, the strict utilitarian aspect of either side of the town gave way to the administrative offices, and vertical housing.

Even there, the differences persisted. The buildings on the spinward side were similar to those of Canterlot; tall glass spires decorated with chrome and bronze. Those on the other side were entirely different; squatter, more robust and lacking the decorations of their counterparts.

The suburbs had spread on the southern side of the city in quaint rows lined with houses of all shapes and sizes and painted with, it seemed, every color of the rainbow.

By then, the Sun was about to sink into the horizon. In Canterlot, Celestia was probably just about to turn the planet, bringing about the night. The setting was alternatively reflected on the city's windows and backlighting it, silhouetting the tall downtown buildings against the red sky of twilight.

They descended towards the city, first joining the medium altitude traffic surrounding the city and going over the industrial and agricultural areas, before going to ground level and entering the city proper.

The hovercar took them deeper into the city, past the skyscrapers, and into the historical City Center, a de-mercantilized zone restricted to small businesses only, and filled with preserved buildings dating back to the founding of Ponyville, made of wood and brick and stone, and with thatched roofs. It looked like something out of a fairy tale, bright and cheery, full of some sort of long-lost idyllic charm, and awkwardly out of place amongst the modern skyscrapers of the modern city.

They halted just outside the edge of the city center, and the driver opened the door. The city center -he started to explain, before Twilight cut him off as she knew this already- was pedestrianized, and therefore out of limits for motorized vehicles. He offered to take their luggage for them, but Twilight declined. She could handle a couple of suitcases, thank you.

And it wasn't like she had a lot of stuff to carry about, just a couple of wheeled suitcases barely bigger than Spike. A lifetime of constantly moving from one research station to another had taught her to pack light, and to carefully consider what she bought when it came to buying. She only had a few books, her portable computer, her Fancy Pants doll, and a set of warm clothes (which she always carried about with her when moving, because she hated being cold with a passion).

This was something that had gone over Spike's head, as he had six different portable consoles in his possession, which took up a considerable amount of luggage space and caused inevitable headaches whenever she had to plan out any travelling she did.

Spike and she waved the departing hovercar goodbye, and started walking. Something about the way her hooves sounded on the floor made Twilight pause, and she looked down. The floor –_road_, her mind corrected- was made up of many flat, hard, grey things, they were mostly square, and colored, in a variety of pastel grey shades, with one or two being a different color altogether.

She raised a hoof, and brought it down, producing a clear and sharp _clop _sound. It was something completely different to the _clang_ of hooves on metal, or of the _thuck_ of hooves on linoleum, or of the sharp _clack_ of hooves on ceramic tile, or of the muted sounds of hooves on carpet. In fact, it was entirely different from any sound she had heard before, a rough… _earthen_ kind of sound. What kind of material was this?

She raised the same hoof, and brought it down again.

*_Clop!_*

_Setts!, _she finally recalled the correct word for the flooring –_pavement_, her mind corrected again- of the road, _made of stone._

She felt Spike climb onto her back, which brought her out of her reverie. If the baby dragon had noticed her momentary lapse, he said nothing.

Twilight recalled the directions she had researched online (it turned out, she _was_ going to be living in the library), and trotted off in that direction, after consulting some signs nailed atop wooden posts, her hooves clopping against the smooth stone of the pavement.

There were a few advantages to Twilight's condition. One was being immune to most diseases, and the other was a frankly terrifying level of stamina. It wasn't uncommon for her to end up staying awake for up to a week at a time before starting to think that she might _need_ to sleep.

Which was a good thing, since with the amount of exercise she usually got (read: none whatsoever), she'd been quite tired by now.

Apparently, their driver had left them off on the wrong side of the city center, and they had to get there on hoof, through the crooked streets of Old Ponyville. They passed by the quaint buildings and shops, through the central plaza, past the old town hall, now a museum, and through the park.

By then, they sun had already sunk below the horizon. At first, it had hung low in the sky, casting a beautiful red and orange glow into her surroundings, before it was seemingly thrust down, below the horizon, disappearing completely and replaced by the pale glow of the moon. Streetlights sprang to life, illuminating the streets they watched over and, should you happen to peek between the straw-thatched rooftops and into the surrounding metropolis, you could see the lights of the skyscrapers shining, and the faint thrum of night life in the distance, if you really listened for it.

Twilight and a way-past-his-bedtime Spike eventually found themselves looking at their destination. It was a massive tree in the middle of what could be considered a small park, five stories tall at the very least, with a wide trunk and big, thick branches covered with leaves.

It also looked like someone had tried turning it into a house, with a spectacular amount of success. There were windows, a balcony, and a short path led to a wooden door set into the trunk, with a sign above it proudly proclaiming:

_Books and Branches Library_

Twilight stared at the tree-slash-building, blinking several times, as if it would replace it with something saner.

It didn't. Looking around her, she found that the library wasn't the oddest building in the neighborhood. No, that title belonged to a cloud shaped into what could only be described as a small mansion, hovering above the house on the right of the library, with a small waterfall of liquid rainbow as a decoration.

That didn't make it any less… well…

"It's a tree." Spike stated from her back, "A tree with a building in it. That's so _weird_."

"Yes." She said, sighing, "And we'll be living in it. Let's just get inside."

They'd scarcely gotten a few steps into the front lawn when they heard someone behind them.

"A speeding ticket! Can you believe that?" A very loud, tomboyish voice complained. "I wasn't even going past a hundred!"

"Oh come on Dashie!" A second, more cheery voice answered. "It's not that bad!"

"This isn't even fair!" the first voice went on in her tirade; ignoring the second "You were going just as fast as I was, and _you_ didn't get a ticket!"

"Nope!" The second voice said, and the first one snorted.

By all means, Twilight Sparkle should have ignored both of them and minded her own business. She certainly would have done so.

Something made her stop. Maybe it was because she was genuinely curious about who these ponies (and it had to be ponies, Equestria was one of the few places were humans were the minority) were. Maybe it was because the way her subconscious was still wired.

Maybe it was something else entirely.

Whatever it was, she stopped, and turned around to see who was talking. They were two mares, which she had already figured out from the voices, with saddlebags on their backs. One, a rather athletic-looking cyan coated pegasus with a rainbow colored mane and tail that Twilight didn't think were possible to have without dyes, cut almost foolishly short, and a similarly polychromatic lightning bolt striking down from a cloud as a cutie mark. She wore goggles on her forehead, had maroon eyes, and she looked incredibly annoyed at something, her head hanging low and her ears flicking back. She grumbled irritably.

The other one was a pink coated earth pony of a slightly heavier build than Twilight herself, with an equally pink mane that was a mess of curls and whorls that made Twilight think of synthetic cotton. Her flank was adorned with a trio of balloons, and her eyes were blue. Rather than walk, she skipped and bounced as she went, a happy smile on her muzzle, in contrast to her companion.

The two of them were passing right in front of Twilight, when the pink one suddenly turned her head to look at her, and Twilight could have sworn that she slowed down mid-bounce. She stopped, and stared at her, the pegasus doing the same once she realized that her friend -at least, Twilight assumed they were friends, and based on current observations it was a fairly plausible hypothesis- had stopped.

For a few awkward moments, the three mares and dragon stared at each other.

Twilight felt Spike prodding her from his seat on her back, and decided to take a risk.

"Hello?" she ventured.

"Uh… hi." Said the pegasus, sounding unsure. She cocked her head and asked, "Hey, aren't you ne-?"

_*GASP!_*

Whatever it was that the rainbow-maned pegasus was going to ask her got interrupted by the pink earth pony emitting an enormous gasp, springing up into the air. In an instant, she'd thrown her companion onto her back.

"Wha-!" the pegasus cried out, just as confused about what was going on as Twilight was. The earth pony paid her no heed, and galloped off, right into the house next door to the library, closing the door with a tremendous slam.

A short amount of time later, she burst out again, without the pegasus on her back, and disappeared into the night.

It took some time for Twilight Sparkle's brain to process what had just happened. Eventually, it did, and she arrived at the inevitable conclusion.

Twilight lowered her head in despair. "Spike" she said, her voice flat, "please tell me the Princess didn't send us into the crazy part of town."

"Um…" the dragon hesitated, "The Princess didn't send us into the crazy part of town?"

The lavender mare closed her eyes, and held on to those words, repeating then in her mind, as if she might convince herself of their veracity.

She couldn't.

"Let's just get inside." she moaned, and turned back towards the library. Taking out the digital key –a triangular prism-shaped piece of metal with a microetched visual code on three of its faces and a tiny rubber grip on one end- from her saddlebags, she unlocked the door, went inside and switched on the lights.

The interior was not what she'd expected it to be. Rather than being cramped, the interior of the tree was wide and spacious, a big, cylindrical room with bookshelves carved into the walls and filled with books, nearly two stories tall with a table at the center, a big wooden statue of a pony's head set on top. Doorways led into what was a kitchen, a reading room with even more bookshelves and computers, and some bathrooms. Two sets of staircases were at either side. One led into a basement, and the other led up to a second story, where a decent-sized bedroom that opened out into the balcony had been carved out. Curiously, most of the furniture that wasn't meant to move around much had been carved out of the tree itself.

Twilight immediately started to unpack the few possessions she had in her suitcases and saddlebags, Spike helping her. After they'd finished, the dragon had crawled into a small bed they'd brought with them and had fallen asleep, snoring loudly.

Twilight, who didn't feel the slightest bit tired, tucked the baby dragon in, and went downstairs, ticking off an item in the checklist she'd made on her computer. She looked at the bookshelves, her eyes darting from one to another.

_So many books… _She thought, dropping to her haunches, _Where do I even begin?_

She giggled, clapping her hooves together excitedly. Her horn glowed, and half of the books on the non-fiction section were lifted by her telekinesis spell, and started to float around her, like a carousel. She looked from one title to the next, trying to find one which piqued her interest.

She selected a hooffull, and was about to re-shelve the others when one made her pause.

_Huh? _She looked at the book, it appeared to be very old, its brown cover worn, and its pages emitting that curious smell of old paper. There was a pair of metal strips on its spine, and an engraving of a golden, stylized unicorn was on the front cover. There was no title to be seen anywhere, so she opened it and flipped through its pages.

It was a manuscript, a book written by hoof or horn, not by a printing press. Rather than fill both pages with text, the author of the book had instead only written in half of them. The pages on the right were the ones that carried words, while those on the left were instead decorated with beautiful illustriations.

_An illuminated manuscript!_ She realized, and Twilight felt her smile grow larger and larger, _This book must be centuries old, a relic of Old Equestria! Oh, thank you Princess!_

Adding the ancient tome to the pile she would be taking upstairs to read, she replaced the books that were still floating about and switched off the lights. She went to the bedroom –_her_ bedroom-, climbed onto the bed, opened the book, and began to read.

"_Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria…"_

_Enter password: *******_

_Processing…_

_Password confirmed._

_Accessing file PYRSTWSR198756…_

_Accessing research footage #0015…_

_Playing footage…_

_Holovid of a white unicorn mare, with a white and lavender two-tone mane, and blue eyes. She wears a labcoat, and a personal computer hangs from her neck, projecting a holographic screen level with the base of her neck._

_She turns to speak to someone outside the camera's field of view, "Is this thing on? It is? Ah, okay."_

_She turns towards the camera and speaks in chipper voice. "Hello, this is Doctor Dawn Velvet. Protocol demands that I make holovid recordings of my monthly reports on my psychological analysis of Twilight Sparkle, as well as our progress in integrating her with society."_

"_But first, I'd like to clear up the "Rumors,"" she made a pair of quote marks with a risen hoof, "that have been leaking back to base. Yes, my husband and I _have _volunteered to raise the subject, whose name, I must remind you, is Twilight Sparkle. Not "Subject five-five-four-two", not "The Subject" and not "It"."_

_She rolls her eyes in derision, and continues speaking._

"_And yes, I _am_ familiar with protocol. I understand that Twilight needs … containment" her face screws up at the word, as if she were eating something bitter, "until she gains better control of herself. I saw the footage. All I'm suggesting is that we don't refer to her as an object until so."_

"_That having been said, on to my actual report;" She glances at her notes, "Twilight is… an unusual child. Not just physically, as Doctor Nightlight has surely told you, but mentally as well. Just to give the highlights, as it were: every day, she wakes up at four fifty A.M, regardless of how much she has slept the night before, and stands in the same place, in the center of the room, facing the door. Should anyone enter, she'll ask for orders. If none are given, she'll continue to wait, for any given amount of time, until someone tells her otherwise."_

"_She seems incapable of acting under her own volition. She will only eat or sleep if she is ordered to do so; otherwise, she will do nothing. Twilight very nearly exhausted herself into unconsciousness before we discovered this."_

_She coughs, and continues, "This is clearly part of Horizon's mental conditioning of her, a control mechanism to keep her from escaping or rebelling." _

_The screens in front of her change, as she passes on to another set of notes._

"_She also seems to take everything asked of her as an order; including eating, sleeping, etcetera. Once she receives an "order", she becomes fixated on it, sometimes going to extreme lengths to carry it out. Failure to perform…" she gave a small shiver, "or _perceived_ failure to perform… absolutely terrifies her. One of our newer staff members, probably as a joke, told her to look for a "Snipe". It took roughly four hours to find her after that, and when we did she was… excuse me a moment."_

_She walks out of the camera's line of sight. The footage jumps, obviously paused and resumed some time later. Dawn is back, her mane slightly frazzled._

"_Sorry, as I was saying, after roughly four hours, we found Twilight in an unused portion of the facility, in a corner, crying. Because she couldn't find a snipe."_

_She closes her eyes, and breathes deeply, composing herself before continuing._

"_The culprit was verbally reprimanded. The other particularities of her behavior that are of note are an almost complete lack of emotional response to… well, anything, besides the already mentioned. She's been with us for six weeks now, and I've yet to see her as much as cry, or laugh, or engage in any behavior appropriate for a filly her age. She does not emote, keeping her face completely expressionless, and speaks in short, clipped phrases that wouldn't be out of place coming out of a pre-sapient AI. Several members of the staff have found this behavior to be very… creepy."_

_Dawn bites her lip. "It's almost as if she were a machine." She muses, "That's what Horizon wanted her to be: an organic machine, no feelings or thought, just… compliance."_

_She is silent for a moment, before continuing._

"_The other inconsistency I've noticed is her reaction to physical contact."_

_The mare finally cracks a small smile. "And the reason it's inconsistent is because it's the most normal behavior we've gotten out of her so far. She actually _likes_ being hugged, it's the few times anyone's seen her smile. From what I can deduce, her previous…" the mare screws her face again, her smile faltering for a moment, "caretakers interacted with her via robotic interfaces, so the entire concept of being held by a warm, living being is entirely new to her. She's also drawn to soft objects, when given a choice and told to play in the nursery."_

"_That will be it for the moment."_

_Dawn's horn glows, as if to end the recording, but she pauses, before adding, "By the way, Doctor Nightlight and I have decided to start recording footage of Twilight Sparkle's time in the nursery, if only to have a record of her progress. They'll be in file RRSTWSRI115893, if anyone's interested."_

_Her horn glows._

_Holovid ends._


	4. Extra Documents files: 13

====================  
><em>Friends of a Solar Empire<em>  
>Extra Documents<br>File #1  
>====================<p>

In 3439 APD, the Gryphus Republic commenced an unprecedented and illegal increase in its military spending. After ignoring multiple warnings from the Trade Order Council, the following letter, written by the Chairman of the Council, was sent to President Ansgar and read over the broadcast network.

[I]Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, we lived on the homeworld, Earth. Records tell of a great war between the mightiest of nations, which left their soils barren and bathed with radiation, killing all. Our ancestors barely managed to escape the same fate. We call this event the First Calamity, and it took many generations for us to recover.

When we deemed our wounds sufficiently healed, we turned to space. We call these times the Forgotten Era, since not much knowledge of them survived. We longed to reach across the stars, but the enormity of space confined us better than any barrier. The closest of stars took many years to reach; merely moving within our solar system was an ordeal.

For many years, we sat within Einstein's Cage, rattling its bars.

And then, a miracle, born of blood and toil: the Phase Drive. It was a dangerous thing, crude and primitive compared to what we have today. But with it, we were finally free of the cage.

And so, we spread. Slowly, at first, but every year brought innovations and resources, and every year we spread at a faster rate; every year our numbers swelled and swelled. We called this the Era of Expansion, a glorious age of progress and peace.

However, these days soon ended. We splintered into our petty empires and arrogant republics. Citizens turned into soldiers, factories spat out arms and munitions, shipyards were lit with a thousand torches crafting countless battleships.

And so began the Endless War. It would last fifteen hundred years, more in some places.

From the fires of strife, a great force was created, with Earth itself as its capital: the Federation of the Stars. They set of to unite mankind under a single banner, as it had been long ago.

They were successful. Only bitter remnants of their foes remained at their borders when peace was signed. From there came the Second Expansion, a technological leap forward that tripled our reach. The first version of the Broadcast network came to be, and we discovered the counter gravity field in that time.

And what a time it was! Of peace, of prosperity, of scientific progress!

…And of terrible deeds.

Purpose turned to fanaticism, suspicions turned to paranoia and authority and vigilance tuned into tyranny and oppression. The heroic Federation turned corrupt as time passed. Worlds were ruled over with an iron grip. Civilians were monitored, inconformity was ground to dust. Children were indoctrinated with beliefs. All this, for the sake of peace eternal. On Earth and many other worlds, experiments were carried out, with the purpose of reforming the human race.

Project Paradise; the search for the next stage in human evolution.

Satisfied with their results, the commenced the systematic extermination of the human race. A genophage was released onto planets in their domain. The human population dwindled, unable to reproduce, and was gradually replaced by the New Men and Women of the Federation. Brain uploading was offered to those with the connections and money to afford it. Records of everything before the Phase Drive were thoroughly destroyed.

Within a few generations, the human population had become a minority within Federation territory. With their dominance clear, the Federation declared an ultimatum against the remaining independent states.

They could surrender, and let their population be supplanted peacefully. Or they could resist and be slaughtered.

Word of the atrocities committed by the Federation had leaked to the leaders of the independent states. They were appalled, they were horrified. They met in secret, to discuss the Federation's downfall. Rebels were sponsored, arms were smuggled, but they could not act openly, lest they fall to the superior Navy of the Federation.

With the ultimatum, they were forced to action. After one final meeting, they sent their answer to the Federation.

They refused.

[b]We[/b] refused.

Through space, our entire species rose up as one. Citizens became soldiers, factories were commandeered and repurposed into making arms and ammunition, shipyards were lit by a million torches crafting countless battleships. Two hundred petty empires and proud republics cast their differences aside and joined forces. Scurrying rebels and pirates turned their gust towards more worthy targets.

The Federation of the Stars sought to unite mankind, and they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

War raged. It was terrible, it was horrific, it was bloody beyond words.

And it was [b]glorious[/b].

During those first years, the Federation's superiority was undeniable. Yet, despite being outgunned and outmatched we never gave up hope of victory. For every kilometer of space, the Federation was forced to pay in blood. Every planet resisted with the force of a million heroes. Ships fought to their bitter end, crews firing even though they were doomed. Every second was a precious thing, which gave us a chance to bridge the technological gap. Every month the line lasted brought new ships with which to resist.

Systems fell, worlds burned, space was filled with debris. People died, some alone, others in pain, and others still in heroics unsung. Widows cried for their husbands and wives, children waited for the parent that would never return.

The Federation had grossly underestimated the resistance they would encounter. Their New Men, intended for an age of peace and harmony could not be bred fast enough to replace their losses. The technological gap proved to be much shorter than they had anticipated, and our increasing numbers soon made it irrelevant. The war dragged on, and the Great Senate on Earth soon found the unthinkable happening:

They, the successors to barbaric, stupid Man, were [b]loosing [/b].

The scientists of the Federation worked like madmen to correct the problem, to find a solution to their demise. Labs produced ever more horrible weapons and technology, before being silenced and abandoned when vengeful and angry human fleets came into range.

Desperate, the Federation recalled their entire Navy towards Earth. The solar system and its surroundings were fortified, huge swathes of the population conscripted. The largest fleets in history sat poised to clash into each other.

The Battle for the Solar System took 50 years, and more than 7 billion souls. Mars was left without an atmosphere. Titan's crust was shattered. The Moon became scarred and unrecognizable. In the end, the Federation of the Stars chose to turn their most powerful and horrific weaponry on Earth itself. The homeworld died, leaving nothing but a dry, scorched, poisoned husk. We call this the Second Calamity, and it haunts us to this day.

Even though they had been victorious, it was with shame that the allied fleet left the place where mankind had once began.

Warships were scrapped, weapons smelted. Soldiers dropped their weapons and uniforms, praying that they'd never have to use them again. Asylums were filled by those driven mad by the bloodshed. Cemeteries were filled with the dead, and those they had left behind. We established the Trade Order, a confederation built on economy, business and diplomacy, not force and violence. We dictated the laws that govern us to this day, swearing to never take up arms as we once did.

And so, I beg of you, to reconsider your course of action. You have dismissed our warnings. You see that we are peaceful, and have called humans an easy prey, but remember that we are peaceful by our own choosing, not because of some innate desire. We know war better than your people ever could, not even in their most horrible nightmares, and it is unwise to make us remember this fact. If you choose to not comply with the laws we put in place for your own protection, then I suggest preparing yourself for a reprisal [b]beyond what you could ever hope to imagine.[/b]

I await your response.

With regards, Antony Beketovk, Chairman of the Trade Order Council.[/i]

_File #2_

_(From: The Technocracy Magazine 30/7/3581)_

_What are flight goggles? For some, they are irreplaceable and invaluable gadgets, and it's a wonder that anything at all could be done before they were invented. For others, especially in those "traditionalistic" circles, they are an affront against all things with wings, and we'd be better off without them. Then again, those traditionalistic types seem to regard everything more complicated than a plow as a crime against Celestia (despite the fact that the Princess has a mail account), so you can take that last opinion with a bit of salt._

_Anyways, what are flight goggles? Simply put, they're a pair of goggles –obviously- with a Heads-up display integrated into them. This HUD can display a great deal of things, which vary depending on model and manufacturer. The most basic models have, at the very least, a speedometer, an altimeter, a radiobeacon receiver, and a compass –although most pegasi and gryphons prefer to use their own, natural compass -. Intermediate models add relative bearing displays, digital magnification, light amplification, and other odds and ends. The more expensive models, on the other hand, can have anything from night vision, to infrared imaging, to shape-shifting lenses._

_Obviously, the main market for flight goggles is pegasi and gryphons, although they've also proven quite popular amongst hovercycle owners, stratojumpers, and changelings._

_Now, for the top ten flight goggles available in the sector market…_

_**Comments:**_

_Posted by: Unregistered Member: _

_I think the opinion of Traditionalists should be taken with a bit more than just a grain of salt. That is, if you can find any of those fine ponies still able to fly, or even render a coherent opinion. The sky is full of fast and hard things nowadays. Things that will come off a lot better than someone of flesh and bones if you bump clouds with one in midair. Things that won't see a traditionalist in time since they refuse to wear those 'affronts', or have those same 'Crimes against Celestia' warn them of an overtaking aircar. They save lives ponies. I have to chase down too many young idiots convinced their wings make them immortal already to add the actively stupid to my list._

_-Lightning Chaser, Police Officer_

_File #3_

In some places of Trader Space, it is customary that criminals sentenced to heavy punishment, such as death, exile, Cryocontainment, or Cognizant Cryocontainment, be allowed to have their last words preserved before the sentence is carried out.

The following are the last words of Professor Almond Wading, employee of the Horizon Corporation, before being interred in Cognizant Cryocontainment in the Alphaz Maximum Security prision.

_Loading audio file…_

_There are sounds of scruffling, of a chair being dragged over a metal floor. There is the sound of someone breathing heavily, almost hyperventilating._

"_Anything you would like to say?" says a voice, male, flat. As if this is something that he has done a great many times._

"_A whole fracking lot, actually." Says another voice, rougher, older and much more emotional._

_The speaker shifts around in his chair. "Where should I begin?" he muses, "How about the one question your damn Directorate never bothered to ask:"_

"_Why the frack did I sign up with a bunch of delusional apes? Why should I, a Celestia-damned unicorn, participate in a project aimed at creating slaves out of ponies? Hmm?"_

"_Well, it was because it was _necessary_," he continues, "because those imbeciles had unwittingly stumbled upon the very future of my species. I allowed them to use my talents to suit their greed so that I could get access to the resources I needed to pursue my real goal. There were so many prototype phases that it was trivial to divert funds and material without anyone noticing."_

_There is silence for a moment, as he was reorganizing his thoughts so that he can present them more clearly._

"_I remember," he starts again, more level-headed this time, "someone once telling me that the reason the humans reached space before us was because we had been cuddled, while they had to constantly out-do themselves to survive. They were right, we'd been under the wings of the Princess since time immemorial, to the point that any previous regime is talked about like a myth and legend. While humanity was constantly at each other's throats for their entire existence, we had our benevolent ruler to guide us and unite us."_

_There is a dark chuckle, "And, in the end, look at who ended uplifting who. Was it the harmonious, united people of Equestria led by their wise, benevolent ruler? No, it was a bunch of apes led by a group of cutthroat, squabbling and naïve despots guided by greed and profit, who couldn't even keep their planet intact!"_

"_Watch your tongue." The first voice hisses, with a sudden rage._

_The second voice snorts. "I'm about to be sent into an isolation chamber that will leave my consciousness a mushy paste. I'll say whatever I want to say!"_

_There is silence for another moment._

"_Anyways," the second voice continues, "Looking over at this… injustice, I had a revelation. As we are, we could not possibly hope to compete with the humans. 'Even with the power of the Princesses,' I told myself, 'we'd always be second best. A very distant second best, at that.'"_

"_And that's when it hit me: 'Even with the power of the Princesses'… What if we had alicorns outside the royal lines, with power to match Celestia herself? What if we didn't have to contend with only wings or a horn?"_

"_Ponykind, as it is now, is no match to humanity. So I decided to make ponykind capable of matching them. I decided to give us the power of the Goddess herself. It would start with a hooffull of them, just enough to have genetic variety. They'd be set loose, mate, bear children who would retain the alicorn characteristics, and multiply amongst the population. In a few generations, we'd have superequines everywhere, and no one would have known where it came from."_

_There is an annoyed grunt. "Of course, _you_ had to barge in. Three decades of work, gone! Just like that! The first embryo had barely started to mature when your hired brutes smashed it into the ground!"_

_There is a momentary pause, as he collects his bearings._

"_Just one last thing." He says, breathing deeply, "If I am the only one to walk this path, then I'm a blue goat. Eventually, someday in the future, somepony else will come to my conclusions, and complete my work. It's only a matter of time, and I hope I maintain enough sanity when that happens to be able to enjoy it."_

"_Anything else?" the first voice asks._

"_Yes," the second replies, "I… I'll walk myself there." He gulps, "Goodbye."_

_Audio file end._


End file.
